"Imagine how much more efficient your life could be if you knew exactly the fastest way to stir your coffee?" Robert Lakatosh, a sophomore at Tennessee Tech University, admits in his podcast that his discovery may not change lives. Yet, in his dynamic, humorous entry – a finalist in NPR's College Podcast Challenge – he goes all out, and takes his curiosity to the school's physics lab.

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Grand Prize winner of the 2023 NPR College Podcast Challenge

In The Monsters We Create, Michael Vargas Arango, a student at Miami Dade College, describes what it's like to live with schizoaffective disorder. Using his own voice, interviews, and layers of sound design, Michael peels away the myths and stereotypes around his rare mental health condition.

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This moving podcast – a finalist in NPR's College Podcast Challenge – is a love letter of sorts, from big sister to little sister. Trinity Chase Hunt, a junior at the University of Delaware, shares phone calls and reads out loud letters she's written to her sister, Jewel, who recently moved away to join the U.S. Army. In Dear Little Sister, Trinity reflects on her relationship with Jewel and how her sister's departure has, in ways, has brought them closer.

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In this week's episode of The Students' Podcast we talk with some of our high school finalists from last year who mastered the art of the respectful interview.

Three students from the Duke Ellington School of the Arts created a non-narrated podcast about the human stories behind the gun violence epidemic in their hometown of Washington, DC. Interviewing family and friends, the students let the interviewees speak for themselves with little editing.

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Ever wonder if that local legend has some truth to it? At the Student Podcast Challenge we love to hear a good mystery, so pull out your magnifying glasses and start investigating!

We talk with last year's finalist Daniel Wang about his 4 month investigation into a hometown history. He gives advice all about how he made his entry "How A Small Town Discovered The Universe."

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Soundproofing and studios and microphones, oh my! When you listen to a professional podcast you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, not everyone has access to that kind of recording set up, but the thing is ... you don't need it.

This week on The Students' Podcast we talked to Aaron and Alex Morgan about how they made their podcast sound so good. Their entry "Why Instagram Is Like A Cocaine-Laced Brownie" was one of our finalists last year and had some of the best production in the competition!

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For this week's episode of The Students' Podcast we check in with maybe the most qualified person to discuss winning the Student Podcast Challenge ... last year's college champion, Anya Steinberg!

Anya's podcast He's Just 23 Chromosomes blew the judges away with masterful storytelling, layered sound and humor. She was a natural choice to be our first ever guest co-host on the podcast! We talk tips and tricks, hacks for recording from home and techniques to telling a personal story.

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Are you ever SO excited to tell your friends a story that you kind of jumble the whole thing up? Like the substance is there, but if the delivery is off it just doesn't LAND as well.

The same thing goes for podcasting. Even if we can hear in your voice that you're excited about something, if there's no structure or narrative to the piece it can be hard to hook an audience.

This week on The Students' Podcast, we're revisiting an episode from last season where we talk to some of our high school finalists who managed to tell their story really well.

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You wouldn't play an instrument without practicing scales and you wouldn't play a basketball game without stretching – so why would you record a podcast without warming up your voice? NPR vocal coach Jessica Hansen has stretches, breathing exercises and vocal drills you can do to make sure that you sound natural when you press record.

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It's almost time for year FOUR of the Student Podcast Challenge. To celebrate we talked to some teachers who have been with us since the beginning.

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