College Finalists In Our Student Podcast Challenge : NPR

College college students throughout the region are again on campus with more tales than ever. They confirmed up and showed out for their return by means of NPR’s College or university Podcast Obstacle, distributing some of the most inventive, intriguing, and remarkable podcasts however.

We experienced entries from 37 states and the District of Columbia, and we read from campuses massive and modest, from the University of Minnesota to Chemeketa Community Higher education, From the Massive 10 to the Pac 12 to the Peach Belt Convention.

Nowadays, we are announcing our finalists. It was by no indicates effortless, but we have narrowed our list down to the leading standout 10 entries that stood out to us, regardless of whether as a result of intelligent crafting, revolutionary framework, attractive seem or pure emotion. You can study and hear to the entire list below.

Now, our workforce of judges will make the even more durable conclusion of picking the grand-prize winner, awarding our to start with-at any time $5,000 scholarship. Each individual of the remaining finalists will get $500.

We will announce the winner upcoming 7 days, and about the coming months we are going to get to explain to-all about their tales on NPR plans this kind of as Morning Edition or All Points Considered. We are going to also release our record of honorable mentions, comprising additional than 50 standout pupil podcasts.

Our finalists this yr revealed that higher education learners experienced time over the past two pandemic-ridden, isolation-inducing many years to get introspective: our best subject matter was self-discovery, and we read that manifest through conversations on lifestyle, sexuality, race, and age. We also heard colorful podcasts on campus audio, as perfectly as campus bears. We listened to college students navigate challenging topics, like antisemitism in college and the aftermath of losing a property. We read riveting work on the numerous works by using of flour and drinking water.

So, right here they are: our 2022 College or university Podcast Challenge finalists.

In Research of House. Grace Fuller, a freshman at Lehigh College started off her story with a typical get-to-know-you issue: If your household was burning down, and you could only seize a single detail, what would it be? From there, her podcast explored the aftermath of a disaster, as Fuller documented what she and her family went by means of when their property was ruined in the Colorado wildfires of December 2021.

Joan Steidl, a freshman at Kent State University in Ohio, describes herself as a “boomerang.” Why? For the reason that this school podcaster, at age 65, is hoping to find out comedy crafting, enrolled in Medicare, and returning to university. In Getting old: the Mom of Reinvention, Steidl tells what it’s like to be 1 of the much more than 6 million older college or university students in the U.S.

Ankit Agrawal’s podcast, I Hope You might be Delighted, narrates his journey as he became additional relaxed with his personal sexuality for the duration of his time at the College of Virginia. Working with the journals he commenced the working day he moved onto campus in August 2018, Agrawal makes an attempt to answer the ever-evasive concern for several young grown ups: “How do you define you?”

What is your most loved carb? Pasta? Dumplings? Pancakes? Pretzels? In Flour & H2o, Melissa Ellin and Jenny Kornreich, juniors at Boston University, investigate the constructing blocks of so numerous of our favourite foods: basic flour and water. Most importantly, they dive into the concern of the century: What genuinely makes a New York bagel so great?

Did you have a most loved American Girl doll growing up? In Mirror Talks, sophomores Lindsey Gispert and Naomi Pepper at Washington’s Walla Walla College revisit their childhood memories of their favourite historic American Female dolls, Package and Addy. In their trip down memory lane, though, they understand the stark contrast involving one particular of the white dolls, Package, whose tale adopted her by way of journalism, and the first historic Black doll, Addy, whose backstory as an enslaved human being is decidedly more violent.

Black bears are a part of campus life at the College of Montana. Normally, this is the position quo. But this calendar year, there are, like, a great deal. What’s Bringing Bears into Missoula? by senior Austin Amestoy and sophomore Haley Yarborough examines this befuddling phenomenon, with some endearing “bearpocalypse” anecdotes along the way.

Aria Young, a sophomore who attends New York College, begins What is In a Identify? by reintroducing herself by her Chinese identify, 杨沁悦. Her piece explores her expertise shifting to Philadelphia at 16 following rising up in Shanghai. She was asked to pick out an American title, and says she has been checking out the results of that preference ever considering that, on her tradition, lineage and immigrant id.

College of Texas at Austin junior Marissa Greene will take us straight to the apply home in Meet Mariachi Paredes, a musically punctuated podcast masking the university’s mariachi band. In the piece, we master how mariachi can be a link to tradition, a usually means of continuing a legacy, and a way to be susceptible.

In Nameless Faceless Monster, sophomores Jared Adelman and Olivia Poolos at Washington College in St. Louis revisit a tale Poolos has told many people today considering that it took location when she was in superior school – with a astonishing twist. Immediately after a 2018 shooting at a synagogue in Pennsylvania, various Jewish lecturers at her university obtained antisemitic hate speech in their inboxes. A long time later, Poolos speaks to the ex-teacher who was responsible – about why he did it and how that act has an effect on his lifetime now.

Right after more than 60 decades of serving the Austin local community, the Dry Creek Bar and Cafe shut its doorways in October of 2021. University of Texas at Austin junior Jade Emerson utilizes her podcast, Farewell to Dry Creek Bar and Cafe, to say goodbye to the area watering gap and meet up with some of the figures who built the put truly feel like residence.

Congratulations to all of our finalists and to the hundreds of other learners who sent us their podcasts!

Remain tuned subsequent 7 days to obtain out the grand-prize winner of the 2022 NPR Higher education Podcast Challenge. And then, we turn to the center and school college students – additional than 2,000 of them – who’ve sent us their tales for the fourth-yearly Scholar Podcast Challenge.