Radio days

Growing up in Philadelphia, Luiza Sulea got involved in the Philly music scene, going with her high school friends to see local bands while learning to sing and play the piano and guitar.

In her first year at Penn, Sulea joined Penn Records, a student-run music business club, and WQHS, the student-run radio station. So, an internship with Penn’s WXPN radio station has given the rising third-year just the experience she hoped for this summer.

“I just really wanted to do something that spoke to my creative interests and my passions but also was founded in a business. XPN is such a staple of the Philadelphia community, which I am bonded with,” Sulea says. “It’s a unique opportunity to get on the inside.”

Sulea chose to major in history, with a concentration in intellectual history, and minor in legal studies in the College of Arts & Sciences, with hopes of going to law school to study entertainment law.

Her parents are “big arts and culture people,” Sulea says, adding that they immigrated to the United States from Romania a few months before she was born. “The value of music and art has always been something that is really important in our family.”

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The 10-week internship at WXPN, offered through the Summer Humanities Internship Program, provides a $5,500 award supported by the College and administered through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. 

Working at the WXPN studio on Walnut Street, Sulea is assigned to the marketing department, reporting to Lucy Briggs, marketing manager.

Sulea’s previous experience in external marketing for Penn Records, designing digital promotional materials, and working with artist management and public relations teams on local concerts, has made her a “great fit” for the internship. “She is really motivated and wants to get more of that hands-on experience with music programming and events,” Briggs says.

One of the projects they are working on together is the WXPN Welcomes Program, collaborations to promote live music concerts. Sulea has been contacting music promoters and music venues in Philadelphia about aspects of the partnerships, such as getting tickets that the station can use for on-air giveaways.

She’s also contributing to the annual XPoNential Music Festival, scheduled for Sept. 19-21 on the Camden waterfront. Part of that effort is writing copy for on-air promotions.

“It’s really cool to tune into the radio and think that I wrote that at my desk last week, and now tens of thousands of people are hearing it out loud,” Sulea says. “It’s a really good feeling, and it also just feels important. I do feel vital to the day-to-day operations.”

Briggs says Sulea is “great at writing,” including concert calendar and newsletter copy, as well as designing promotional flyers.

“She’s taken it all in stride and has been detail-oriented, asked good questions, and been eager to learn,” Briggs says. “So that’s been great, having someone who is very interested in the work that we’re doing and contributing really well to that process.”

Sulea has been especially adept at using project-management tools, Briggs says. “She’s been able to internalize the whole process from start to finish and really see it through to fruition, handling not only the administrative aspects of it but also the creative aspects,” Briggs says.

Sulea says she has picked up several important skills that are transferable to her goal of attending law school, like analytical reading, precise editing, and working collaboratively with a team on writing, building an “experience catalog” that can be valuable for any position.

“It’s great to not forget what really makes you tick every single day, and for me a lot of that is music. But it's also community. And so, working for a nonprofit where the team is funny and witty and banters like a little family has also been really rewarding to me,” she says. “It’s also just a really fun place to be.”

And there are some perks, like the chance to go to live music performances around Philadelphia, including Phish, Eric Clapton, and the Make the World Better Weekend, FDR Park’s first concert series in three decades.

“I feel like the job has connected me further not only to the music scene, and to how nonprofits work, but to Philadelphia itself,” says Sulea. “I’ve learned about a lot of small artists and small venues that I’d like to support going forward with Penn Records and WQHS. I’m really excited to transfer the skills that I’m learning to my student life at Penn.”

In the coming academic year, Sulea plans to continue at WXPN as a work-study student. She says the experience at WXPN will benefit her as she helps lead the effort to bring the student-run radio station WQHS, which has been on hiatus as it is in the process of moving back to its headquarters in the Hollenback Center, back on the air this year.

“I think that student radio is really important to a lot of people, and to empowering the voices of students,” she says. “They come to the station and they play their music and they voice their concerns as they talk about their lives. For them it’s an outlet.”

Sulea is also set to be a work-study student at the Penn Carey Law School as the undergraduate Dean’s Office assistant this year.

“Ultimately,” says Sulea, “I think it would be fantastic to work in the legal entertainment field. Working with contracts and working with music people.”