For seniors, saying goodbye to friends and a place that’s been a second home for four years is always the hardest part of graduation, but for WRGW seniors, the toughest farewell is the final sign off from their radio shows.
With weekly WRGW shows ranging from topics of music production to political controversies, the departing seniors of WRGW described their last show as a bittersweet finale to a major chapter of their college experience. For many senior hosts, the final shows featured special formats distinctive from their show’s typical routine, including collaborations with former hosts of the show, rehashing favorite on-air moments and covering topics they never got the chance to discuss as a goodbye to their loyal listeners.
Sophia DeThomas, a graduating political science major, hosted the show Geminisms, an astrology-based talk and music show centered around the weekly Gemini horoscope, where hosts play music matching the themes of the week, for three years. Alongside her fellow Geminis, Grace Cassineri and Aiden Milne, DeThomas has used the show to talk about her life, share music and discuss the longtime friendships among the hosts.
“We see in the horoscope how it relates to our lives, and then we talk about that and go from there,” DeThomas said. “Honestly, one of my favorite parts is that we do get to share a lot of what’s going on with us personally.”
For their final episode, DeThomas and the Geminisms hosts abandoned the weekly horoscope format and instead took a trip down memory lane, playing songs that felt meaningful to them and their show, including “Green Light” by Lorde and “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machine. DeThomas said what made the final episode so difficult was having to say goodbye to her cohosts, some of whom she had known for most of her life, including Milne, who had been her classmate since elementary school.
“The vibe was kind of bittersweet songs, because again, we were reminiscing on this great time, but it came to an end,” DeThomas said.
Khushi Hemrajani, a senior studying entrepreneurship, is the co-host of Feudz, a show dedicated to covering feuds between musical artists throughout history. Hemrajani took over the show in her junior year, with the show now ending for good after a nine-semester run.
“I’m super chronically online,” Hemrajani said. “And so I feel I’m very much following the feuds. I’m really into the drama, and so anytime there is pop culture beef, I am eating it up.”
Hemrajani said a typical episode involves three acts: an introduction to the artists involved, a dive into the drama itself and closing thoughts, all woven together with music from the feuding artists. Over the years, the show has expanded beyond two-person feuds to cover broader industry topics like nepo babies and Disney stars.
For its final episode, Hemrajani and her co-host, fellow senior Ray Swidwa, revisited some of the defining feuds they had covered throughout the show’s run, including those between Olivia Rodrigo and Sabrina Carpenter, as well as Billie Eilish and Jesse Rutherford.
“Having a show also gave me a sense of belonging that I didn’t even realize that I was looking for,” Hemrajani said. “We’re in the middle of this big city, and it turned this huge campus into something really intimate where people were actually listening, and the voices mattered.”
Vincent Karam, a senior double majoring in biology and data science, co-hosts Studio Sessions with Arjun Srinivas, a show that dedicates each episode to a music producer and their respective catalogs, collaborators and sounds. From Pharrell Williams to Timbaland, the show has covered genres like hip-hop, pop and classic rock since the two launched the show at the start of their junior year.
“We both have a very diverse music taste, and that’s why it worked out so well,” Karam said. “We both are open to trying new things.”
Karam said the show has evolved a lot over the past two years since its inception, growing from a scripted conversation based on in-depth research to its current state of a more casual discussion between friends.
“We realized that it doesn’t have to be that deep, and it’s just more of like a fun thing to hang out,” Karam said.
The Studio Sessions finale featured two episodes. The first episode scrapped the one producer per episode format, and the hosts worked through a list of producers they’d never before featured, exploring the discography of Questlove and New Order. The second episode featured a DJ set from Karam, who DJs as a hobby, playing a mix of genres on air, inviting Srinivas to pick some songs for him to include in the mix.
“Showing up every week and getting to hang out and pick out songs with Arjun definitely made us closer friends,” Karam said. “And it was always just a fun part of my weekly routine.”
Sonia Howell, a senior majoring in political communication, has co-hosted Grab and Blab for nearly two years. The talk show covers the intersection of politics and pop culture, with hosts each week discussing topics such as cloning and unpopular opinions on genetic testing.
In each episode, Howell and her co-host Ananya Gondesi come in with questions and talking points, like an article or a YouTube video that deals with current events, to start the conversation. Past episodes have discussed George Santos’ prosecution and stories of him being a drag queen and philosophical questions about spirituality, always relating topics to the hosts’ opinions and personal lives. Howell joined the show as a host her sophomore year and has hosted ever since.
For the final episode, Howell and Gondesi brought back the old hosts — Lila Quinn, Cameron Johnson and Annie Gold — for a conversation on what Grab and Blab meant for all of them as hosts.
“We went into it just wanting to talk about Grab and Blab in general, and how much we have learned from each other, and how much actually we’ve become friends throughout all this,” Howell said.
Howell said the show has helped to prepare her for post-grad job opportunities, as her ultimate career goal is to have her own talk show. After interning at SiriusXM this past semester, she said she was surprised by how much she learned from WRGW and how it can translate to a professional environment.
“The people that I’ve met through doing WRGW have totally changed the trajectory of my life,” Howell said. “Like, totally full stop.”
