Graduation isn’t the only major milestone awaiting Aarohn Dethvongsa in the coming months.
Shortly after crossing UNH’s graduation stage with a degree in Sport Management and Leadership and a minor in Business Administration, Dethvongsa's attention will shift across the Atlantic Ocean to his next opportunity in Paris.
Dethvongsa is interning with the Olympic Broadcasting Services, where he will be working as a production assistant at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
“I couldn’t believe it the first couple weeks after I found out,” Dethvongsa says. “I didn’t think I would be doing something like this coming out of graduation. It’s one of the biggest sporting events in the world, and I am getting to be a part of it.”
Dethvongsa is assigned to Lyon Stadium, where men’s and women’s soccer teams worldwide will compete for gold. As a production assistant, he will assist the camera crew with equipment during the broadcast.
This will be the first time that Dethvongsa has traveled outside the county, and he has been told to expect some long days, but that doesn’t concern him in the slightest. “It’s a huge networking opportunity to get my name in the industry and make some new connections,” Dethvongsa says.
Dethvongsa’s interest in sports media and creativity drew him to the Sport Management and Leadership major. He became especially interested in videography through his media production and marketing courses.
Dethvongsa interned last summer with the New Hampshire Fisher Cats' in-house production team and, more recently, with UNH Athletics at Wildcat Productions. There, he’s had the opportunity to operate the camera and work in the broadcast control room for the broadcasts of multiple UNH sporting events.
The experience with Wildcat Productions has been especially valuable, according to Dethvongsa.
“It helped me realize that this is a field that I could see myself working in,” he says. “Last year, I strictly worked a camera, and this year, I learned a lot more about working in the control room and the coordination behind the scenes that make a broadcast work.”
One of Dethvongsa’s last assignments with Wildcat Productions was working at the NCAA Women’s Hockey Frozen Four and the national championship game.
Dethvongsa would like to work as a videographer for a major sports league, preferably the NBA or NFL, creating unique content outside the traditional broadcast.
