Jake Saunders, a junior communication studies major and transfer student, started at Temple University in August after a five-year college hiatus. So far, he is confident that Klein College of Media and Communication will expand his vision for his future.
Saunders received his first taste of collegiate life in 2012 at Bennington College, a liberal arts school in Vermont. There, he studied avant-garde music and improvisation while planning and throwing on-campus shows featuring local collegiate musicians.
Although Bennington provided Saunders with the skills to follow his dreams, those skills also gave him the motivation to leave in 2014 so that he could focus on his entrepreneurial endeavors. While working with underground experimental artists in New York City, he met his mentor Trip Warner of Wharf Cat Records. Warner helped Saunders figure out his interests in the music industry, and in 2016, he put Saunders at the helm of the cassette label Ramp Local. Now, Saunders heads the label by helping underground artists reach interested audiences. The label puts out four to six releases a year.
Saunders moved to Philadelphia to continue his position at the label in a smaller city. But when his mother told him that she had resources that could assist him in completing a college degree, he decided he could and should continue his education.
“That’s part of my reasoning for going to school: I have this privilege, I need to take advantage of this,” he says. “I can’t just wake up one day and have this regret.”
Though weary of the public education system, Saunders does feel that Klein College gives students some freedom to create their own path.
“That is one positive thing about Klein in particular—especially if you’re a communication studies student—you gotta take classes in media studies and production, and PR and advertising,” he says. “And that’s all really great and important to give you a broad view of communications and media.”
This skillset is something he has developed while also working as a publicist at Clandestine Label Services’ Northern Spy Records, where he mostly represents jazz musicians. But while his real world experiences have helped him heavily, he still feels that an education is valuable to attain.
“I just want to check that box, and I don’t think I want to be doing freelance forever. I really just don’t want to wake up when I’m in my forties and not have that piece of paper that would’ve been really easy for me to get at this time in my life.”
He plans to make the most out of his time at Temple and wants to get involved in some of the organizations on and around campus such as the Temple University Gamers’ Guild club and local classical and jazz radio station WRTI. More than anything, he wants to make this period of his life count.
“I’m just trying to figure it out like everyone else. I’m no different,” he says. “I feel lucky to have some experience in the world before jumping back into school.”