Voices of Santa Clara Podcast
**Click on any picture to view the episode page, including a web player and transcript article.
ORGANIZATION
Just me, currently training new students to take over for next year
TIMEFRAME
September 2017 - present
SUMMARY
I started a podcast interviewing students, professors, and staff at Santa Clara University about their life stories and lessons learned. I’ve published over 80 conversations with dozens of students, professors from 24 different disciplines and staff members including the multiple university presidents. The podcast won 2nd best college podcast at the 2018 California College Media Awards.
Problem:
Santa Clara University is full of amazing people, but these people are often hidden in corners doing their amazing things. After my first year, I realized that I would only meet a tiny fraction of Santa Clara’s star students and fantastic faculty if I just put my head down and took classes.
How could I help connect the campus, spread the word about the plethora of opportunities available to students, and give the community an insight into the lives of members of the Santa Clara community?
Solution:
A podcast! Ever since high school, I’ve been obsessed with podcasts. Freakonomics, The Tim Ferriss Show, Radio Lab, Big Questions with Cal Fussman, Masters of Scale and Ted Radio Hour are a few of my favorites. Besides listening to podcasts, I love asking questions. Starting a podcast seemed like the most logical way to hone my question-asking skills, learn from some of the smartest people around, and share what I learned with the community.
Process:
Once I secure a guest through email or connections, I research and prepare questions. During the actual interview, I try to stay in the moment and let my curiosity and the guest’s stories lead the conversations. After recording, I edit, transcribe key points and quotable quotes, then publish online.
I also collaborate with the student newspaper to include weekly transcript articles to reach even more people. This year, I’m on staff continuing my role of interview articles.
Results
- 2nd best podcast at 2018 California College Media Awards
- Over 6,000 downloads
- Won 2018 Multimodal English Prize
- 84 episodes
- Featured multiple times on top of SCU.edu homepage
SCU Career Center special episode
Student Athlete Taylor Berry
Technology Ethicist Brian Green
What I’ve learned:
I did a whole episode on this, check it out here.
As well as a blog post on Linkedin.
In short:
- Good ideas and forward progress come from collaboration across disciplines
- Say ‘yes’ to travel
- Listen to the stories of others
“We tend to pigeonhole ourselves by disciplinary clichés that are quite meaningless. Life is much more interesting on the borders and the boundaries between disciplines.”
- Kathleen Maxwell, art history department
