By Gaby Moran
Staff Writer
Senior Natalie Wade’s dream after college is to become a coffee girl. Now, while that sounds like a job you do not need a degree in, being a coffee girl for an important producer is one of the first steps in order to become a major player in the media world down the road.
“I realize when I tell people specifically that after college my goal is to be a coffee girl they get a little confused,” Wade said. “But in order to have a chance to be a part of that world, you have to start out on the very bottom and work your way up.”
All through her life, Wade has always been fascinated with films, music and television. And, usually, students in Coppell who have dreams to be involved in that lifestyle joins the high school’s television show, KCBY.
“For a school to have such a great media program, it opens so many opportunities for students to figure out if they would like to do more with it in life,” senior KCBY member Taylor Vowell said. “Ever since Natalie started KCBY, it was obvious that that is where she belongs.”
KCBY offers everything from acting, filming, editing and producing so all students can find their niche. For Wade, she discovered her niche freshman year and now plans on majoring in Creative Producing in college.
“Natalie is a solid team member of the KCBY team, always producing quality work and willing to help other students with any questions they have,” KCBY adviser Irma Kennedy said.
Freshman year, Wade decided to wait to take her health credit and take a media credit to allow her to apply for KCBY the following next year. As a sophomore, she learned everything about media that the class had to offer. Once mastering the technological side, Wade then began producing many materials for the next three years.
“I have forever loved movies, but when I joined KCBY I realized I wasn’t a big fan of filming or acting, so the next obvious thing was producing,” Wade said. “After trying that role out, I found out that is where I was meant to be.”
After realizing that Wade wanted to be a producer when she grew up, she started looking into schools that had a focus major in the producing area. After a long search, Wade came across Chapman University, a liberal arts school in Orange, Calif. Wade visited the college, learned more about its film school and fell in love with it.
“Chapman has such a beautiful campus – right on the beaches in Orange County – and the school recently opened a new updated film school that had anything you could think of,” Wade said.
Chapman’s Dodge Film School specifically offers a program called Creative Producing to their students. This program combines the basic creative skills with the business, legal and organizational aspects of the entertainment industry. With an already small student body of 1,340 undergraduate and graduate students in the Dodge Film School, this program only allows a select few in every year – and Wade got in.
“This opportunity is right up [Natalie’s] alley, and the school picked the right person who will only continue to get better after learning so much here,” Kennedy said.
Besides being one of few students representing the United States, considering 30 other countries are represented at the university, Wade has been offered many scholarships that made her decision that much easier.
“It’s great that Natalie gets to do exactly what she wants to do in college” senior director Bayley Zarrephavar said. “Chapman is going to give her so many great opportunities within her field and she will go far in life.”
With her final decision to go to Chapman, Wade hopefully will receive the preparation to become a coffee girl to a major producer right out of college. Everyone has to start somewhere and, in the filming business, it includes lots of Starbucks runs.
