Miami Dade College students named finalists for National Podcasting Awards

Some of the best student podcasts in the country come from Miami Dade College, at least according to NPR.

With more than 500 applications from across the country, only 10 students were selected as finalists for NPR's College Podcast Challenge, two of whom are MDC students.

WLRN education reporter Kate Payne spoke to them.

“I've lived like this all my life.”

Growing up in Medellin, Michael Vargas Arango often talked to people who weren't there.

In his original podcast episode, “The Monsters We Create,” he tries to explain. From the first moments of the episode, listeners hear a thumping, distorted voice calling Michael's name and threatening him.

“Why do you tell them of my presence?” the voice asks. “They won't understand.”

The echoes of the voice pulsate, throbbing, distorting, crescendoing until Vargas Arango's voice is heard screaming, “Stop!”

“My head is starting to hurt. Could you please shut up for a second?'' Vargas Arango says.

But that other, echoing voice is his own, constantly teasing him and whispering in his ear.

“This is how I have lived my whole life,” Vargas Arango explains.

“Liar,” a voice whispers.

“But you're probably wondering, 'What is this guy saying?' Who the hell is he talking to?” asked Vargas Arango.

His family had theorized that the voice was just an imaginary friend. Or maybe it's a ghost.

“I'll never forget the look in my mother's eyes when she saw her son playing with his invisible friend. I'm Colombian, so I wondered how a religious Colombian mother would react. You can imagine that,” says Vargas Arango. “'This child is possessed.'”

“No, it's not,” says another voice.

Ultimately, Vargas Arango said she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.

“Why do I have to hide who I am?”

This year's NPR College Podcast Challenge received more than 500 entries, and Vargas Arango's vibrant soundscapes and candid conversations about his own mental health captivated listeners.

“I've been living my life just like you guys. My imaginary friends just disappeared one day,” Vargas Arango said on the podcast. “But I can still hear him talking to me.”

I hear a voice saying, “I'm here.”

“One day, these voices that I thought were just intrusive thoughts…it was him. And nothing happened,” says Vargas Arango. “I'm not dangerous. I'm not crazy. And I'm not delusional.”

“No, it's not,” the voice agrees.

“I'm just another guy living with mental illness,” Vargas Arango says.

In this episode, Vargas Arango can be heard walking around the Kendall campus of Miami Dade College, where he is studying psychology. He asks the other students – What would you do if you found out someone with schizophrenia was attending here?

“It must have been really scary,” one student told Vargas Arango. She didn't think she was talking about herself. “And I would probably call someone or call public safety because I don't feel safe.”

Vargas Arango said the reaction from his fellow students was not surprising. They were exactly what he had imagined.

“I didn’t really feel anything because I already knew that,” he said. “I just proved my point.”

Through his podcast, Vargas Arango shares what his heart sounds like and challenges the mindset of those around him, including his girlfriend, who asked him not to tell her friends about his diagnosis. I could object.

“Basically, I made that decision because my girlfriend was trying to protect me,” Vargas Arango told WLRN. “But why should I… why should she protect me as I am?”

That conversation inspired him to create this podcast.

“Why do I have to hide who I am? Why do I have to hide what I live with?” he said. “I want to bring light. I want to spread this message of mental health awareness.”

Throw away your shame and chase your lifelong dreams

Another MDC winner is challenging stereotypes in a different way.

In an episode of the podcast called Midway Through, Anna Bassett opened up about letting go of the shame that kept her from pursuing her lifelong dreams.

“I recently turned 48 years old, and I wanted a change and felt like I needed a change. So I went looking to make my dreams come true,” Bassett said in the episode. Told.

“For years, I wanted to go back to college and finish my education. When I graduated from high school, I wanted to become a mental health therapist. But I ended up dropping out during my sophomore year. “Remorse haunted me for years afterward,” she says. “I started to feel really guilty and ashamed.”

But life went on. Bassett had four children and was raising them at home.

“It brought me so much joy. But as time went on, I realized how hard and exhausting it was. As time went on, I felt a sense of loss. myself. I felt lost because I no longer took the time to listen to the voices of others, to confirm myself,” she says.

“Ultimately, I realized that I was alive because of my children. I felt joy and pride in their experiences…but I was missing that.”

While watching her children grow up and encouraging them to complete their education, Bassett dreamed of returning to college herself.

“I sometimes tell my older child that someday we'll graduate from college together,” she says. “I say this with a smile on my face, but with sadness in my heart… I wondered if I would ever get that chance.”

But after 28 years away, Bassett returned to Miami Dade College. And she found herself surrounded by people as young as her own children.

Basset was excited, but also scared…and humbled. She had forgotten how to use PowerPoint, and she wasn't familiar with using a classroom app called Canvas.

Finally, she met another student named Angie, who was turned into a college student by her mother. In Bassett's podcast, you can hear them whispering in the campus library.

“Stay-at-home moms can do anything, because the fact that you're keeping the family functioning should make people immediately jump to hiring us,” Angie tells Bassett. “Because we can do things that no one else can do.”

And we hear what it was like for Bassett's 18-year-old son Julian to attend college with his mother.

“For me, it's very encouraging to see you go back to college,” he told his mother on the podcast. “Because it proves that no matter how many times you let go of your dreams, you can always get them back and you can always keep chasing them.

“You're creating a second chance for yourself at a time in your life when not many people think they can do the same thing.”

Seeing herself through her son's eyes, Bassett said: “Why don't I feel moved by that?”

“That's just… it's not the only reason I'm doing this, but it's a powerful reason,” she told WLRN. “And like I said, what I'm going to leave you with is that moms are going after what they want. And I want them to do the same in their lives.” I am thinking.”

“It's a professor's dream.”

Bassett and Vargas Arango created a podcast for the MDC class Introduction to Communication with Professor Emily Sendin.

“This is a professor's dream,” Sendin said of the students' accomplishments.

Sendin said her two students are very different. Vargas Arango was eager to be in the spotlight.

“I remember walking out of class and him going and talking to me. And he was saying to me, 'I really think you can win this.' And I thought, 'I really think I can do it! ’” Sendin recalled with a laugh.

Ms. Bassett, on the other hand, was so nervous that when Sendin played her episode for the rest of the class to hear, she had to leave the room.

“But I also give her a lot of credit because she did something that really scared her,” Sendin said of her student. “And she conquered that fear. And look where she is now.”

This was the first semester that Sendin built a communications class around NPR's podcast challenge. But she says this won't be the last time. Her students still have many stories to tell.

The winners of NPR's College Podcast Challenge will be announced in late March. Each finalist will be given a prize of $500. The grand prize winner will receive a $5,000 cash prize. Honorable mention entries will be announced in the coming weeks.