Alumni Works For Bill Nye
By: Jillian Monczynski
Imagine leaving everything familiar, packing bags and heading across the country to Los Angeles to chase a dream. For BGSU alumna Kelsey Kula, chasing her career has been nothing short of an adventure.
Kula graduated in 2014 as a Public Relations major with a Marketing minor. With a life-long dream of working for Walt Disney Studios, one day she decided to quit her job, pack her bags, move out west and never looked back.
“I wasn’t progressing the way I wanted to professionally in Ohio,” she said. “I just woke up one day and decided to make a change.”
After moving to California in March 2016, adjusting to the L.A. lifestyle and landing a career was a bit of a battle.
“I applied for several Public Relations and Marketing jobs, but was having no luck,” Kula explained.
Although a career with Walt Disney Studios didn’t work the way Kula had hoped, a change in career path led her in a different direction.
It wasn’t until Kula stumbled upon an in-house production assistant job for Bunim-Murray Productions where she decided to take a leap of faith and apply. Bunim-Murray Productions has done reality shows such as Keeping up with the Kardashians, Real World, The Challenge and more.
Kula explained that after a few interviews the company decided not to hire her. Much to her surprise, she received a phone call requesting her to fill in for a day as a production assistant. After the employee she was filling in for quit, Kula was offered the job immediately.
Nearly a year later, Bunim-Murray Productions promoted Kula to be a production assistant for Bill Nye Saves the World for Netflix and was hired to be Bill Nye’s assistant during the filming of the show. She explained how amazing the opportunity was to work with Nye since she’s been a huge fan since she was a little girl.
It wasn’t till the ending of Bill Nye Saves the World, where Kula got a phone call from a production manager who referred her to the Late Late Show where she landed the job as a production assistant.
Kula’s work on-set at the Late Late Show changes weekly. She explained how one week she helps out the scripts department, another week she works with the talent department, or the next week she could be completing runs, such as picking up props for shows.
“It is such a fun environment,” she said. “This company really wants its production assistants to learn and grow with the show and there is always something new and fun going on here.”
Kula expressed that it wasn’t easy leaving home and everyone she has ever known. Her advice is to always be open to different career paths after graduation because life takes people through very unexpected twists and turns.
Updated: 09/15/2018 09:38PM