Career Day
I’ve been thankful and appreciative for the opportunity to speak to children at a local elementary school about podcasting. This year was actually the second year I was invited to speak at the school, and I had a blast talking to kids and adults about the world of Podcasting. Admittedly, Alex and I don’t do podcasting as our primary job (as it’s really more of a hobby that keeps us close and is great for conversations), but it’s good to encourage others to explore different creative avenues.
Last year, I wasn’t too certain on what all I’d be asked to do, just that they were seeking a podcaster and looking for someone to talk to kids about. So I wasn’t sure what all to bring, and what the format would be. I think the best way to describe it would be to think of it like a career fair or college fair, where you have individual booths with different folks at each booth talking about their career. Last year I brought a few props to talk about the Podcast, but certainly felt a little underprepared, which I was able to really address in full this year. The only thing I neglected to do was get some candy for the kids, but that didn’t stop them from coming to the booth!
The main thing I wanted to do this year for the kids, was show them what the experience is like to be a Podcaster, not by just telling them about what a Podcaster does, but by giving them an opportunity to be in the driver’s seat and actually interview someone remotely. For this, I tapped Alex and my father who happened to be available that day for kids to interview. Alex unfortunately was busy, and we certainly ran into some minor technical issues (the biggest being that my dad couldn’t see the children due to some connectivity issues), but we rolled with it and had fun. I had it set up too so that while we had the laptop, we had another monitor that was showing the live interview to those walking by, which created a nice way to entice kids to come to my booth, and to encourage them to want to interview my dad.
I’m really thankful to be able to do something like this for kids and was also very thankful for my father for offering to help out. In a way, the way we set things up ended up giving kids the opportunity to learn about podcasting and being a chemist, which is pretty cool in my book! It’s fun though to talk to kids and show them some potential options they may not have considered before, and that’s been a tradition from when Alex and I grew up. I know our father used to go to a nearby elementary school and talk to kids about chemistry, and I also have some fond memories of ALCAS/CUTCO (yep, the folks that make knives!) coming to my elementary school and talking to us about careers and the broader world. In some ways, the world has never been more connected than ever before, but there’s also never before been such a need for people to connect on a more personal level, and that’s something Alex and I are happy to do!
We’re really appreciative of our fans and our guests, it takes a lot of work to put these together, and thankfully our process is getting more streamlined (so I’m not put in as many late night hours on the editing thankfully!), but we’re always delighted to hear how someone may have really enjoyed a particular guest or topic or found our show to be a great way to relax after a long day. It’s been an incredible experience, and we’re happy to keep things going.
I’m still working on our latest episode and know it’s been too long…BUT…I promise you’ll enjoy it! I think I’ll also work at getting more consistent in blogging here too. While the blogs may be a little more skewed to me (Ron), I’ll see if I can maybe coax Alex into writing something at some point as well!