In the kitchen of our house, the smell of food has always mingled with the sound of the radio. The presenters’ voices are part of my daily life and accompany me throughout the day, which is how I fell in love with radio.

I’m Clara, 21, coming straight from Paris. I left the city of love for Sydney, the city of a thousand beaches. Because Australia is so far from France, I was not really interested in this area of the world before meeting Aussie people. It was when I was doing an exchange in a university in Madrid, Spain, that my Australian friends introduced me to their country and culture. It really made me curious. In France we have so many clichés about Australia so I decided to move to Sydney to make up my own mind. This is how I have ended up doing a four-month internship at EastSide Radio.

I was able to leave France as part of my international relations studies which allows the students of my school to do a long internship starting from March. I found EastSide Radio by chance, while I was looking for an internship on the Internet. What really got me was the fact that the station is a community radio, dedicated to people and promoting local music and culture. I was curious about this radio, as my previous experience has been in the “news” sector of journalism and radio. In addition to my school in France I’m also enrolled in a class that prepares me to pass the very competitive exams of French journalism schools. In order to get into a journalism school for my masters, I am trying as much as possible to catch up with the international news everyday, especially everything that is related to politics, economics, sports and other areas. Specifically, I think being able to get into the Australian music world can be a great opportunity to expand my areas of interest.

I’ve been passionate of music for a long time, I first played flute for one year then piano for eight years. I played mostly jazz and classical music. Whilst I stopped playing instruments, I still try to go as many music festivals and concerts as I can and to keep up to date with the latest musical trends. I particularly like electronic music. Here’s a small sample of my personal French playlist. Enjoy!