Meet Eric Eisenstein, '97

Emmy® Award Winning Cameraman, Father and Thomas Edison State College Graduate

As an Emmy® Award-Winning cameraman for NBC Sports, Kirk Gibson’s heroic home run in the 1989 World Series in Los Angeles that helped the Dodgers take the series is one of many moments captured by Eric Eisenstein.

He was at the top of his field, but something was missing.  It was a college degree.  Eisenstein left college in the late 1970s to take his first full time broadcasting job. Thomas Edison State College helped him earn the degree that he had started decades earlier.

Eisenstein fondly recalls his time at the college and working around his busy schedule. In 1997, he completed his Bachelor of Arts degree in communication.

“Being a student again and being tested in something other than my career was very fulfilling,” he said. “Intellectually, it really recharged my batteries.  Work, even live television, can become routine. Pursuing my degree was reinvigorating.”

As both a cameraman and director, Eisenstein has covered some of the most memorable moments in sports over the last two decades. He currently works on two of the best-known sets in America:  NBC’s Today show and Saturday Night Live.

Yet Eisenstein said earning his degree gave him a different type of satisfaction.

“I felt great to be a student again,” he said.  “My family, especially my children, had a chance to see me study and to see me start this thing and to finish. I was able to talk the talk and walk the walk.”