True Life: Grad Life.

How Did We Get Here?

In the Spring 2022 semester, I was enrolled in MAPC’s Digital Storytelling course. One of the bigger projects toward the end of the semester, one in which we work with a group to produce a podcast episode, and treat it as if this was one episode as part of an ongoing series. The intention was to produce a show akin to the likes of This American Life, Snap Judgement, and Decoder Ring. The hallmark of these podcasts series is to investigate or chronicle a story. Sometimes it’s a quirky little slice of life story, or recalls some pop-culture artifact of yesteryear, or anything really. Often, there is at least one or two interview subjects, and some analysis sprinkled throughout.

For Frank Espinoza, Julia Zelle, and Evan Harris, and myself, the theme that we came up for our podcast was something that already binded us: the graduate school experience. As for the interview subject for the specific episode we had to produce, we interviewed my cousin, Michelle Pangilinan. I don’t want to give away much more, but it was an enlightening experience to interview my cousin, to tell her story, and proud to have helped produce a great podcast alongside a talented cohort.