► Tell us about you and your podcast
My name's Praneeth Duggirala and I'm a mechanical engineering graduate from India. During the past three months I've dedicated most of my time to applying for my grad school and in that process, I have aced my standardized test and verbal test like the ILETS. Which helped me get an admit to NC state this fall, through the Student Support podcast I wanted to share my experiences with students who are beginning to apply to grad school and make them familiarise themselves with this process.
► Why & how did you start this podcast?
Podcast has been something close to me over the past three to four years I've invested my free time in listening to podcasts and as a non-native English speaker, they helped me improve my hold on the language. Through this process, I developed an inclination to start my own podcast that could help students learn and thereby starting a community of like-minded people. I started my pod in January this year. I immediately started to record my podcast once I finished the registration process. This would showcase my eagerness to start a podcast.
► How'd you find the time and funding to do this podcast?
Since my podcast is just 3 months old and I've been busy in my application process for grad school the frequency has definitely taken a toll. But I'm freeing up and you can expect me to release a new episode once in three to four days. I've literally didn't spend a single penny as of now on podcasting but I will do so at the earliest on equipment and hosting guests.
► What do you gain from podcasting?
Unfortunately, I haven't got any sponsors as of yet apart from Anchor which is the website I used for podcast creation. I haven't generated any revenue as of yet through the sponsor but I planning to do so in the near future. Podcasting helps in growing connections with people from different backgrounds and helps me impart my knowledge and thoughts to various parts of the world.
► How does your podcasting process look like?
I prepared each episode by writing it first in word and do my own research on things that I will mention in the podcast. I try to link the books that I have mentioned, Unfortunately, I haven't had any guest as of now in the case I do get to interview a person It'll be through zoom. In terms of audio editing, I've used nch.com.
► How do you market your show?
I've just used my Twitter account to market my show. I feel Instagram could be quite useful for marketing which I'm planning to do so in the near future.
► What advice would you share with aspiring (new) podcasters?
My only advice to aspiring podcasters is to be genuine with the content you create and have trust in it. Through this journey, I learned how hard it can be to organize your content and deliver it in a succinct way. Anchor would be a great resource that I will suggest to a new podcaster.