Podcast culture has made its mark and in its wake, the Ohio University Scripps College of Communication has launched a podcast: The Scripps Launch Pod.
Hosted by Erin Roberts, the director of student development for Scripps, the podcast covers topics such as getting an internship and what it’s like to be a Scripps student in the pandemic.
“It’s been hard to reach students with the information and the internship and job openings that I know about,” Roberts said. “I thought that maybe I would be able to reach the students who may not be as likely to open and read an email. If I kept things short and sweet, maybe a student would even pull it up and listen to a 10 or 20-minute podcast while they did a workout.”
Roberts releases episodes every Tuesday and hopes to do so through the rest of the semester. After that, she said she plans to take a hiatus over the summer to regroup.
The first episode of the podcast featured three Scripps ambassadors who shared their experience as being a Scripps student through the pandemic.
Leanna Siupinys, a senior studying visual communications, said the information that will be provided is going to be relevant for current students and even recently graduated students.
“I think it'll be, from the sounds of it, a pretty well-rounded podcast,” Siupinys said. “It's not really geared towards one specific genre, it covers everything and is relevant to everyone, which I think is really nice.”
Another student featured on the episode was Dylan Theisen, a sophomore studying journalism. He said he thinks it’s a great opportunity for students to sink their teeth into what OU has to offer.
“It seems like it should be a really reliable resource especially in internship season and scholarship season,” Theisen said. “It serves as a way to walk students through the things you don't get a class that teaches you how to do.”
In the podcast, the Scripps ambassadors also talked about how being a student through the pandemic has been challenging and still is.
“Being an ambassador, there's another layer of difficulty because it feels like there's so much more you could or should be doing to help or to be involved,” Theisen said. “The opportunities right now, we're just so limited. For all Scripps students, there's not really many ways we can put our hands into the net.”
Other episodes of the podcast have been on how to get ahead of searching for an internship or job and utilizing your alumni network. Roberts intends to interview other alumni in some of the remaining podcasts.
“I’m trying very hard to focus on alumni who have something to contribute to students,” Roberts said. “I don’t want to have alumni on the podcast and talk about their career for an hour or half an hour. While that’s very valuable and we know we have several successful alumni, this podcast was designed for students and I want content to be focused on students.”
Although Podcast Studio One is not yet open for student use, Roberts said she’s looking forward to getting students back in that space.
“We’re really looking forward to getting this pandemic under control so that we can get students back in that space and continue to make that available to our students,” Roberts said. “This is something that is absolutely booming right now and we want our students to be well-versed in it.”
