Section VI: Reflecting on Personal Experiences
Reflect on three work experiences you completed during the MSEM program. These experiences may be related to sport, entertainment, hospitality, or general business functions. For each experience, provide the following:
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Brief description of the role and your responsibilities.
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Key skills or insights gained.
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How the experience prepared you for your career or helped clarify your career interests.
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Connection to coursework - mentioning specific courses, concepts, or assignments.
Due to commitments with my current full time role, I did not have three different work experiences throughout the MSEM program. For this section, I focused on my current position as well as two positions I held prior to enrolling.
Tour Office Coordinator, Feld Entertainment, 2024-Present
As the Tour Office Coordinator, I am primarily responsible for the preshow Magical Pass. This includes overseeing two performers, loading in and loading out equipment, and traveling to a new city and venue each week. It also includes office-based tasks to support the Tour Manager and Tour Coordinator – and the show itself.
One of the key skills I gained throughout this job is resilience. When a patron is upset with the Magical Pass, I am the person who is expected to help with their concerns. In addition, traveling from week to week can be very overwhelming at times. Being resilient has helped me continue to move forward and find joy in this role, and in the touring lifestyle.
This experience is helping me prepare for my career by exposing me to new cities and venues each week. Before starting this position, I was struggling to know what city I wanted to live in after my undergraduate degree – let alone what professional role I wanted to go into. Being exposed to different cities shows me where I would want to settle after this role is completed.
A class that connects to this work experience would be SPTE 701: Management in the Sport and Entertainment Industry. In this position, I am directly overseeing two performers, and a part of the management team for over 50 others. Taking this course during this position helped me define my own management style in order to lead these teams more effectively.
Photo Citation: Unknown, 2026
Head Usher, The Muny, 2023-2024
Photo Citation: Sophie Reidt, 2023
The role of a Head Usher was to lead The Muny’s ushering staff. I was a direct supervisor to over 100 ushers nightly, working on a team of eight and reporting to the two house managers. Tasks included assigning ushers to specific locations in the theatre, training ushers, handling concerns from patrons, and ensuring the policies of the theatre were followed by patrons and staff.
The primary skill I gained throughout this position was improving my leadership skills. This included clear communication, working hard, and adapting to situations when needed. Becoming and growing as a leader in a place that meant so much to me was incredibly important, and this experience helped me in my first full-time role
My career interests were heavily defined through this role. The main way was the environment The Muny creates. When the environment around you is surrounded by hard working people moving towards a common goal; it creates a very fun and welcoming environment – known in the St. Louis community as “Muny Magic.” This is the type of environment I want to continue throughout my career.
A major concept that relates to this position is crowd management. Ushers were stationed throughout the theatre for this purpose, and head ushers oversaw those specifics. The attributes of crowd management that had a major impact were time and space (Grady, 2025). With 10,800 people who need to be seated in forty-five minutes, safely managing the crowd happened nightly.
Sound Script Intern, The Muny, 2022
Finally, my second internship at The Muny was the Sound Script Intern. This internship required me to sit in on all rehearsals to create the sound mix script for the sound department at The Muny. Anything that was heard onstage needed to be in this script, and it was my responsibility to make sure it was accurate.
The major skill gained from this role was attention to detail. Things would happen quickly during the rehearsal process, and I needed to be sure that everything was in the script accurately. Being able to focus and pick up on small details to create this script helped me improve my attention to detail.
This role required me to be in the rehearsal area for everything, clarifying my career interests by showing me how a group of people come together for a common goal. Stage management, the directing team, the choreography team, the cast, and myself were there day in and day out – and this showed me how important a strong, united team around a common goal is. This concept is something I want to bring into my future workspaces.
While there is not a specific course in the MSEM program that directly applies to this position, I believe the attention to detail this position taught me helped me be more affective throughout the program. Making sure things are completed accurately the first time was a huge asset in the MSEM program.
Photo Citation: Christina Meier, 2022