UC Irvine’s school radio station, KUCI, offers volunteering opportunities for students and faculty — with DJ as the most sought-after position.
To any UCI students or faculty looking for a sense of community, a platform for expression or a fun volunteer side gig, KUCI volunteer training for this fall began Oct. 5 in room 134 in Steinhaus Hall from 7 p.m. to 8:20 p.m.
The volunteer position allows those associated with UCI to host original music, talk or news shows broadcasted on 88.9 FM to the neighboring Orange County cities Santa Ana, Orange, Newport Beach, Tustin and Costa Mesa.
KUCI’s training program is one of the longest out of all UC radio stations. KUCI and KCSB of the University of California, Santa Barbara are tied for the most rigorous training program, requiring volunteers to participate in an eight-week training program.
The high season for KUCI training is fall quarter, usually drawing in roughly 100 applicants each year. As the academic year progresses, the applicants dwindle to around 50 in the winter and 25 in the spring, according to KUCI Training Director Brooke Medina.
Only about half of the trainees complete the program. While the eight-week program can appear as a boot camp that weeds out the weak — in reality, KUCI training directors aim to keep as many trainees as possible. Medina attributes the scheduling uncertainty of freshmen applicants to the program’s poor retention rate.
“I’ve done different things to see what can best work out, but it is just about people’s scheduling,” Medina told New University.
KUCI Training Director Sean Somers agreed with this sentiment.
“We try to emphasize when recruiting that the whole thing is zero risk and no commitment if they don’t want to continue,” Somers told New University. “If you can’t make it this quarter there is always the next.”
After completing training, trainees participate in a comprehensive graduation ceremony — diplomas and stage-walking included — implemented by Medina to spice up the experience for potential volunteers.
Then, trainees must reach a volunteer-hour quota, which tends to deter potential DJs, even after completing the program. In a way, trainees must prove their worth to the station to earn a slot. However, Somers said volunteering at KUCI is hardly a job.
“The work itself is music curation and volunteering, unless you choose to take on more responsibility, and all of it is good fun with good people so it never feels like work,” Somers said.
Another common deterrent is the application process for booking a show. This includes a demo tape meant to make you stand out from a handful of other applicants. When asked for advice, Medina offered that “the easiest way is to have a co-host because there’s technically less people applying.”
When it comes to the shows themselves, KUCI is open to volunteers’ ideas. While the standard types are a music show and a talk show — the interpretations can vary vastly. Talk shows, for example, can really cover any topic that the DJ is interested in — as long as it follows the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) guidelines and KUCI’s song and artist stream maximums.
KUCI’s stream maximums limit the amount of streams a song has or monthly listeners an artist has for what is allowed on their station. Medina said that this is part of KUCI’s goal to provide a platform for overlooked artists.
“Our whole thing is underground radio, underplayed, underappreciated,” Medina said.
The rule requires a song to have under 3.5 million plays, to be by an artist with under 1.5 million monthly listeners and to be from beyond an artist’s top five most played songs unless that artist’s discography is fewer than five songs.
“There’s a lot of reward in doing that because our whole thing is being able to play artists that are not being played on mainstream radio,” Medina said. “It’s really cool because actual record labels listen to college radio stations.”
Beyond the possibility of making a local impact, Medina and Somers joined KUCI for the same reason: to find a sense of belonging. Both were music lovers who had found the volunteer opportunity through a mass email KUCI sent to all students.
Medina joined KUCI before her first year in 2022. Like many college newcomers, she wanted an easy way to find friends.
Now, entering her senior year at UCI, she has established a network of KUCI volunteers who she has grown friendships with beyond the radio station. Before the beginning of fall 2025 she went on a trip to Monterey with friends she made at KUCI.
She noticed the same pattern happening for other fellow volunteers, stating, “People make a lot of good connections at KUCI.”
Somers spent his first year feeling underwhelmed by the scale of his social circle and sought refuge in KUCI. Somers joined his sophomore year and quickly found his footing, forming valuable connections with other volunteers.
Now, as a training director, Somers wants trainees to feel the same way he felt when first joining.
In his eyes, the first step is to build bridges between trainees. He explained his method as asking trainees to raise their hand if they own vinyl or like to go thrifting.
“You’ll see [that] basically the whole class raises their hands, and I would try to emphasize to them that they are amongst like-minded people,” Somers said.
Potential volunteers can complete an interest form and visit KUCI’s website.
Griffin Chan is an Arts & Entertainment Writer for the fall 2025 quarter. He can be reached at griffilc@uci.edu.
Edited by Alyssa Villagonzalo and Joshua Gonzales