While many students come to Chabot looking for guidance or credits to transfer, some students, like Allan Samson, use it as an opportunity to hone their skills in their field of choice. The newly- appointed Commissioner for Arts and Culture in Union City spent some time sharing about his experience at Chabot and how it helped him in professional life.
When he first started at Chabot, Allan said, “Oh man, I’ve been at Chabot for a mighty long time. I’ve just been an in-and-out student. So technically, I started here around ’08 I think. I was doing all the radio and all that stuff too. So I used to work at 102.5 KDON, which is like a sister station to 94.9. When I first came to Chabot, it was just freelance. I think I did a little bit of newspaper, I did TV, I did a lot of radio. And Photoshop when Final Cut was around. Just more of like the media classes. But I ended up starting my own business. And that’s why I end up leaving Chabot because I put my time and effort into my business.”
That business, Samson Transportation Services LLC has allowed Allan the opportunity to travel and meet people all over. As for what they do, Allan says, “Everything. From warehousing to driving, offloading, anything that’s a carrier service. So pretty much delivering anything and whatever that entails. Other companies might not do it, but I’ll do it. I’m well rounded. I’ll do whatever the job takes.” Speaking on some interesting deliveries, he said, “I go to Alcatraz once a week, I’ll make deliveries to celebrities, professional athletes, whoever, wherever.”
Though his business still keeps him busy, Allan has still returned to Chabot time and again. “So the purpose of me coming back was to develop a podcast, which is the future of broadcasting. Ever since I started coming to Chabot, I always had my own thing, always recorded videos and worked on projects even when I was young. So pretty much as the equipment or software and hardware kept evolving is the reason I had to keep coming back to college to better learn how to work with it.”
While attending TV classes at Chabot, Allan created Next Level TV, of which he says, “It was an entertainment show that I was doing a decade ago. I did like 5,000 episodes in maybe like four, five, six year span, and it’s over a million views, just that channel. If you go to 89.9, (The TV and Radio Station at Chabot) you’ll see my logo up there.”
For his new project, Evolve The Earth, he’s moving his focus onto something different. “We’re doing all types of education. So when I first started, I was interviewing all the professors, so we did automotive, physics, astronomy. I have a couple new episodes coming out with psychology, philosophy, just any genre that you could learn. I’m kind of going in depth with any professors I can talk to.”
Speaking on how he used his time at Chabot to help become the Commissioner for Arts and Culture, Allan explained, “Learning how to expand my podcast and developing and making sure that it’s able to survive in the real world, outside of school, is what I came for. I was doing a lot of the news broadcasting, a lot of the stuff, I started perfecting news packages. So news stories, news packages, pretty much what you see on the news. That did something, that added another layer to my production.”
As to how he actually was able to land the job, he said, “I went to do another news package event, which was the Top of the Hill Festival in Daly City. I ended up running into some radio station reps and then my cousin, who was there, knew the guy that was doing all the events, who gave me his business card, right? So I go back, finish the news package, and then I start doing my real research on finding everybody in the video, and come to find out he was a commissioner within Daly City.”
This inspired Allan to do even more searching of his own, claiming, “I saw Union City was hiring in December, when I applied. I filled out the questionnaire, I figured yeah, just go for it. By January, they’re like, ‘yeah, we would like to have you on board,’ and I’m just like, “what? So I went to the town hall with the mayor and all the City Council, pretty much told them what I was doing, the news packages, the story of my podcast, and this is something that they’re kind of looking for. I never thought about this position or if it ever even existed until a few months ago. Now all of a sudden, I got sworn in into the city.”
Many students come to Chabot with not much more than an interest or a preferred vocation, but Allan has proven that with a bit of motivation and persistence, you can apply knowledge learned at Chabot to find a career in a field of your choice. You can find Allan’s ongoing show at Evolvetheearth.com, or on social media @ETETalkShow.
