University of Texas Permian Basin’s podcast studio offers students and faculty a way to create podcasts and videos and learn about audio/visual trends along the way.
The studio was created in March 2022. It is free to use and gives students a chance to create multimedia projects. Located in the library, it is part of the Roden Entrepreneurial Center in the College of Business.
Senior Learning Technology Analyst Curtis Rogers said it was initially evolved into a studio space where faculty could create introductory videos to their courses. They also started having students come in to get photos taken for LinkedIn, for example.
“We can do photography, and, of course, video with the photography. We’ll help them take the LinkedIn headshots whenever they come in and help the students build up their resumes. … We help out whoever comes through the door. Now, lately, what’s been the trend that we’ve seen is that we’ve had two podcasts that have recurring episodes,” Rogers said.
One of the podcasts is The Seed Podcast, sponsored by Project Grow where they talk about things that are important to graduate students.
“Then we’ve got athletics. They’ve started doing their podcast out of here as well. Those are our weekly ones. … We’ve worked on stuff for Bynum School, done things with the AR (augmented reality), the virtual reality interventions that we’ve helped them with. We meet here and do a lot of that planning and general production stuff,” Rogers said.
Rogers said they are paired with the Makerspace so students can build objects and the studio can build media to accompany the objects.
People can also make YouTube videos working with the communications department.
Students also get a chance to use technology they might not otherwise get a chance to try in the studio.
“We do some really high-end stuff at UTPB. Some of the stuff that we’re doing with the VR research, especially Bynum, that’s cutting-edge research using VR interventions” for students with special needs, Rogers said.
“We build interventions that hopefully, through VR (virtual reality) show them, this is how you should behave. This is why, and these are the things that happen. Putting those things together, hopefully front loads the experience to where they’re able to function a little differently in the real world, because they’ve experienced it in a much more safe space in the VR,” he added.
Virtual reality can also be used for practical purposes such as teaching students how to cook so they don’t hurt themselves.
Rogers said virtual reality production and 360 video production are “super new,” and they are doing it in the podcast studio.
Production engineer/student worker James Zertuche said he started in the studio this past summer and has learned a lot already.
“I’m a finance major, but it’s really interesting. I like computers … so it’s really easy to learn all this on the job … and it’s really easy to pick up,” Zertuche said.
Rogers, an Army veteran, reached out to all the veterans on campus about working in the studio.
“I just took the chance because I wanted a part-time job over the summer. … Once I realized what all this was about, and it’s actually interesting too, but then the software and the audio production is pretty cool,” said Zertuche, a Navy veteran.
He added that this is a really good opportunity because while he can use the GI Bill for his education, if he’s not taking class in the summer, “I gotta get paid, so it’s good to stick here.”
Zertuche himself said he listens to podcasts all the time, even long-form podcasts that can last for hours. He added that it’s comforting to listen to people talk.
“I think a lot of people do that nowadays,” he added.
Along with veterans, Rogers said he wanted to get freshmen and sophomores to work in the studio as well.
“Because the amount of training that we do provide them, we want them to stick around for a little while. It’s difficult to train up someone new, especially for some of the stuff that we do. My student workers were exclusively responsible for the 360 camera feed that we have at graduation. Some people don’t realize that we actually had a live feed at 360, so you could look around and look at whatever you wanted to see … during graduation. Training people to do that kind of stuff is time consuming,” Rogers said.
