That's awesome!
I will never forget my first experience like that. I was a Sophomore in High School, in a band, and had just bought a Tascam cassette 4 track from our band director ($200). We set everything up at my drummers place and recorded a song. Having no effects and zero EQ, I asked my Dad one Saturday if I could take over one of the production studios at one of his FM stations and mix it down.
So we went in, hooked the four track up to the massive 32x8 Mackie (the Tascam had 4 RCA line outs), and away we went. It turned out decent enough....for a metal song in mono.....but I learned a LOT. He kept cautioning me about the Mids and how to sweep them in order to pull out the best tone. The drum track was the worst as it was a single channel submix of 4 mics (kick, snare, hi hat, and a single overhead....all dynamics). We then took that mix over to a friend of his that ran a post production studio where I was shown the detail work of "polishing" and mastering. After that day I was hooked on recording and live sound. That same year of school I was handed the reigns of doing all of the audio for school musicals, talent shows, etc (easy way to get out of class!)
And that of course turned into spending increasing amounts of money on recording equipment. And then software and interfaces. And mics. That was 25+ years ago....still digging it.