What do Ludacris, Cupcake Wars and Shaquille O’Neal all have in common? They’ve all worked with Notre Dame alum Abigail Anderson.

“Notre Dame set me up to be independent,” said Anderson.

Anderson chose to go to Notre Dame after her parents wanted her to go to a military school. She then researched schools and found Notre Dame. She convinced her parents to let her go to Notre Dame instead of a military school.

After attending Notre Dame, Anderson decided she wasn’t quite ready for more school, so she decided to move to Colorado to become an arborist.

Anderson had a few odd jobs in between until she became interested in photography. Anderson started out with an assignment in Boston. A friend of hers was going to a meeting for Washington Street Redevelopment Project, and Anderson wanted to be a part of it.

She received the job out of twelve other photographers and took off from there.

From arborist to firefighter to photographer, she finally ended up in the world of news.

“When you get the journalism bug, you should run with it because it’s a part of you,” said Anderson.

Anderson then worked on music videos, TV shows and news. She worked with artists like Ludacris and T.I. on their music videos.

For reality TV, she worked on Real Housewives, Cupcake Wars and Shaq Versus, where she worked with Shaquille O’Neal.

Now, Anderson is a news producer at the local CBS station WFRV. She moved to Wisconsin to help out a high school friend with a TV show called Felon Farm where felons learned how to work on a farm.

WFRV found out she was in Wisconsin and wanted her as a writer. She was later promoted to being a producer.

What hasn’t Abigail Anderson done? From arborist to news producer, she’s really done it all, and she has learned a lot from it.

“You’ve got to not only have tough skin, but also peel-backable skin,” said Anderson. “You’re going to be wrong…you don’t know everything. You have to be able to pick yourself back up.”

As for the future, Anderson isn’t quite sure what’s next, but she knows for sure that she eventually wants to go to college. She wants to zero in on one of her interests and really learn a lot about it.

“You can catch yourself and backpedal, or you can catch yourself and learn from it,” said Anderson.