When NPR revealed our College Podcast Obstacle 3 years back, the contest provided us a window into unanticipated times and locations in youths’s lives as they attempted to understand the pandemic lockdown. We listened to podcasts taped and produced in youth bed rooms, stories about household, buddies and liked ones, sound-rich research study jobs, and a great deal of young people attempting to much better comprehend who they are and where they originate from.
Quick forward 3 years: We’re back, with our $5,000 grand-prize scholarship, more training products and assistance, and the chance to have your voice, your story, reach our NPR audience and beyond. So whether it’s your first-ever podcast task, a long time enthusiasm job, or simply something you wish to leave your chest– you have actually got lots of time to figure it out!
Beginning? Take a look at these resources:
This year’s College Podcast Obstacle is open for entries since today, Oct. 6, 2023, and will close on Jan. 5, 2024. ( You can send your podcast here.) That’ll provide you the whole fall scholastic term, and an opportunity for the growing variety of trainees in podcasting classes to send their last jobs.
And yes, similar to in 2015, NPR will award the winner a $5,000 scholarship, with $500 rewards for our 10 finalists.
One huge modification this year: the college contest will be open to trainees of any ages pursuing a partner’s or bachelor’s degree, in addition to those who have actually currently finished previously in 2023. This indicates that if you’re a current graduate who didn’t have the chance to get in due to our brand-new timeline, you can still send your work!
As in previous years, there’s one crucial distinction in between the college competitors and our Trainee Podcast Obstacle for trainees in grades 5-12: Those more youthful entrants need to have a grownup send their work. College podcasters, you can enter your own work, without going through a teacher, coach or your school, as long as you’re 18 years or older.
How it works
For this contest– and the middle, high school one returning in January 2024– our standard standards stay basically the very same: Trainees can develop a podcast on any subject they want to check out. To provide you a concept, we have actually listened to entries on what it resembles to reside in a separated dormitory, the history and tradition of a trainee mariachi band in Texas, and the delights of finding one’s love of discovering at age 65 Some styles we have actually seen over and over consist of concerns on race, identity, and belonging. Your podcast can likewise remain in several formats: an interview, narrative story, and even investigative reporting. You can do it on your own, with a buddy, or with your whole class.
One essential guideline to bear in mind is that the optimum length of your podcast is 8 minutes. Longer entries will be disqualified. After years of listening to trainee podcasts, we have actually found out that much shorter is much better.
Where to start
To get you began, we produced this Sound Recommendations page that consists of a multitude of podcasting resources on how to select a subject, how to compose in your own voice, how to modify audio and usage music in your podcast, to name a few. Even, and we’re severe about this, how making a pillow fort can make you sound much better! (It’s a technique our press reporters and manufacturers still utilize when we’re on the roadway!)
More resources
You can discover more pointers and techniques on The Trainees’ Podcast, our podcast on how to make a great podcast– brand-new episodes coming quickly, so please watch out! We likewise motivate you to get a feel for what we’re trying to find by listening to in 2015’s winning podcast, which can be discovered here And previous years’ winners’, here: Miriam Colvin and Anya Steinberg
For more pointers, recommendations and the most recent updates on this year’s contest, make certain to register for our weekly newsletter Trainees, we can’t wait to hear your stories, so on your mark, ready, record!
