When Matthew Kay entered Metro State as a freshman in 2002, he had no idea what he wanted to do. But today, as a senior majoring in technical communications, he has two national awards to his name; confirmation, he says, of the video editing/production career he has chosen.

This summer, Kay won a Bronze Telly Award in the recruitment category plus an Aurora Award in editing. The Telly Awards honor outstanding local, regional and cable television commercials and programs, as well as fine video and film productions, and the Auroras also honor strong video and film pieces. Kay won both awards for the 17-minute promotional video he directed and produced, entitled: “MSCD First Year Program.”

Renee Ruderman, who directs the First Year Program, approached Kay with the project while he was in her English 102 research paper class. Creating his own internship, Kay spent hours in the First Year seminar classes shooting footage and then crafting it into the award-winning video. The video is shown at Metro State open houses and orientations.

“We wanted this to look like it was done by a professional company,” Kay says. And though he can’t directly attribute any enrollment results to the video, classes, he says, filled faster than ever before. In fact, all First Year seminar classes are full for this coming fall semester.

“It tells me I’m on the right track (career-wise),” he says. “This is what I want to do and I have the potential to be good at it.”