I made my first podcast in the Fall of 2016. It was my first semester of undergrad at The College of William and I was taking a class called Museums and Identities. One of the projects required us to research a person or place important to the Revolutionary War and, if possible, a part of the 2015 musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton. I chose to research John Laurens as he met all of the requirements and was an early supporter of abolition.
Listening back to this podcast years later is strange. I remember recording it in my dorm room with a cheap microphone line by line as I had no experience scripting content. With a pile of books on either side of me and way too many tabs open on my laptop I tried to piece together a compelling and informative story about John Laurens. If I remember correctly I think I got a cold about halfway through recording and tried so hard to make my voice sound like I wasn’t sick!
I also presented it on my 19th birthday and despite some of the audio repeating in parts, it was well-received. Yet over the years, I lost the original audio files when changing laptops and while pursuing podcasting further hadn’t really thought about my first one. Thanks to some digital archaeology in my personal email account I found the closest thing I have to a final edit of my first podcast. So here it is, fresh from the vault, my first podcast!
Sara Schmieder 