Nick Bausenwein (C'25)

Major: Communication; minors in Consumer Psychology and English
Hometown: Eatontown, New Jersey
Post-grad plans: Professional figure skating, then a position in children’s media

Communication major Nick Bausenwein had already begun his career as a professional ice skater before he arrived on Penn’s campus. Two weeks after graduating high school, he joined a traveling show and performed along the West Coast from summer 2019 to March 2020.

“I had signed on for another year; then COVID happened, and obviously, no shows were happening, so I emailed admissions, and I was like, ‘Wait, please let me back,’” he said, laughing. Penn did, and he started college with virtual classes that fall.

The following semester, Bausenwein returned to tour while taking a full course load of asynchronous classes, then took another gap year to tour before returning to Penn.

On campus, Bausenwein co-led the Penn Figure Skating Club and discovered a love for children’s media. Taking Annenberg senior lecturer and advisor Kim Woolf’s Children and Media course proved a turning point in the narrative arc of his life.

“I got introduced to a lot of the opportunities that exist within children’s media development, some on the creative side and some on the research side, seeing how kids learn,” he said. “I saw the impact that quality kids’ media can have and how important it is.”

Through the Annenberg in Public Service program, Bausenwein did an internship at the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) — working with kids’ content, seeing the research that goes into it, and learning how PBS measures programming to ensure it is helping kids.

He wrote an honors thesis about how children feel about in-person meet-and-greets with film characters.

He plans to skate professionally for a bit longer after graduation, but then wants to work in children’s media. He said the internship “gave me a lot of hands-on experience with exactly what I want to do. It was such a dream come true.”