While I love podcasting and exploring storytelling in an audio format, my day job is as a lecturer at a university in Toronto, Canada. Last semester I had the pleasure of teaching a course called Interdisciplinary Innovation in the Master of Digital Media Program with long-time friend and colleague, Chris Ambedkar.
During one of the experiential activities in the course, I encouraged students to think about a topic, whether personal or professional, in which they could realistically build into a podcast. According to author and podcaster Eric Nuzum, you only need two prerequisites to start a podcast: something to say and a passion for saying it… and I couldn’t agree more. The seed of the Dear Professor podcast was planted during this assignment by Anna Lang and began to sprout when Katelyn and Anna, both students in this class, reached out to me towards the end of the semester to see if I would be interested in supervising a directed studies course in the winter semester all about Dear Professor. Anna has wanted to start a podcast for a long time and now armed with an idea and a potential to receive a course credit for it, now was the perfect time to start. I am not an audio professional and I made it very clear to Anna and Katelyn from the start that I am a pro-am (professional amatuer) podcaster who is figuring this out as I go along. However, they were excited to work with me and I was excited to work with them and also take on a bit of a different mentorship role with students.
The reason I’ve asked Anna and Katelyn to come on the podcast today is to fulfill their final deliverable; a reflection of the entire process. Because we have these audio platforms, I thought it would be fun and fitting to ask Katelyn and Anna to share their final thoughts on the semester-long project creating Dear Professor with me here, in an audio format. I promise that this conversation will no way affect their mark for better or for worse; I want this to be a safe, open, candid conversation about their journeys and the highs and lows of creating a podcast from scratch.
Happiness is working hard towards something you believe in and after hearing today’s conversation, I think you’ll agree that Anna and Katelyn have worked hard towards creating a podcast they believe in… I think they were pretty happy with the process and with the outcome but I’ll let you hear from them directly.
You can find the Dear Professor podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and on Instagram @dear.professors.
Music:
Podington Bear - Thought Bubbles
Dear Professor Intro
Freesound:
InspectorJ - bell ding
Hobotrails - Drum roll
Talk Paper Scissors Theme Music: Retro Quirky Upbeat Funk by Lewis Sound Production via Audio Jungle
