Podcast- Anxiety, Teens, and Higher Education

About this podcast

A common issue that many people are struggling with today is anxiety, and though it is being identified in all generations, it seems that teens recently have had the most occurrences of this condition, and are especially vulnerable to it. What might lead them to feel this way?

Podcaster Bio

Atenea Duenas

An image of myself, I have dark eyes and dark wavy hair — This is me. 🙂

Seventeen years old at the time of recording, I am the host of this podcast. I attend Mountain View High School and Freestyle Academy of Communication Arts and Technology, and I am really interested in drawing and creating stories. Animation at Freestyle has been really fun, and I’m hoping to pursue it as a career. I struggle with anxiety a lot, and I get nervous about the smallest things, in addition to the big things. Sometimes it gets in the way, but I always try to be a good student and an effective team member.

Introduction

The purpose of the podcast project is to practice telling a story using solely audio. It is a little different than most of the other Freestyle projects which are mostly visual, so it is a new and interesting challenge. Podcasts are also very accessible, and a medium in which people can use while doing almost anything, it just requires some listening. For this podcast I was inspired and influenced by others such as Science Vs, which takes a research based approach, but I also was inspired by The Moth on RadioPublic and the story-based approach it takes. So I tried to blend those two styles into a conversation-based podcast about anxiety.

Process:

An image of me doing a thumbs up in front of the mic — Process picture one: setting up the microphone/audio

Me ready to speak into the mic — Progress picture three: ready to record

Screenshot of the Adobe Audition interface — This is a screenshot of the file after editing it in Adobe Audition.

I went to one of Freestyle’s audio booths to record me speaking , and I decided to use the software Adobe Audition since I feel like I understand that better. Setting it up was a little challenging for me but I was able to figure it out, and started recording and reading my script, doing several takes until I was satisfied, and then editing it together and adding some music in the background.

The second mp3 file is the final finished podcast audio, with the music.

Reflection:

I revealed a little bit more about myself and was a little vulnerable. While this is a little scary for me, I feel it is important to tell my own story if I am going to speak on the subject. It also reveals why I care so much about it. I had to learn how to use technology in the recording booth so that was interesting. Based on my experience, I’ve learned on how to reach an audience in a new creative way, which I think is valuable. For those who would like to try podcasting, I recommend finding something that you feel passionate about and that is important to you, or at least interesting to you. That makes the conversation a lot more entertaining, and I also recommend doing some research, as educating oneself is also important.