Podcasts - A Beacon of Nerdy Awesomeness

With no “disrespect” to the iPhone and Facebook, the podcast is quite possibly the greatest tech invention of the 21st century, used by many private SAT tutors to teach you online!

What is a podcast? It’s a downloadable audio snippet ranging from two minutes to an hour, on any topic from nature to talk shows to audio versions of TV shows – basically, anything that you might want to listen to, there is a podcast that caters to your interests. The podcast subscription is free, and you listen to it on your iPod, iphone, or other portable device.

Why are podcasts beyond awesome? Instead of spending idle time (e.g. driving, walking, working out, doing chores) listening to music and learning nothing, you can listen to a podcast and absorb immense amounts of information. It’s like having your favorite teacher or professor at your beck and call and getting them to tell you incredibly interesting stuff on the topic of your choice.

Productivity! By my calculation, I spend 1.5 hours a day doing idle tasks (commuting, running errands, etc). I listen to podcasts the entire time – so, by my calculation I will listen to 500 hours of podcasts every year. This learning time is the equivalent of about THREE MONTHS of full-time lecture in school. So, assuming I listen to “productive” podcasts (e.g. not sports related), by the end of each year it will be like I took off three months from work just to catch up on current events and learn more about my areas of interest. This delights me, and only with the practicality of podcasts would I be able to achieve this added productivity.

How Does This Apply To Students? Students’ lives are packed to the brim with school work and extra-curricular activities, which makes it extremely difficult for them to keep up with the ever-changing world around them. The biggest road block for young people becoming engaged with current events is: a) it takes time, and b) they feel like they have no idea what is going on, so they have no clue how to go about finding out more about something they don’t know much about.

Podcasts easily tackle both issues by giving students a really easy way to stay up to date with current events without having to sacrifice free-time (because they listen to them when they are otherwise doing nothing) AND they are easily obtained and updated by a quick iPod or phone sync. The ease and convenience of podcasts makes it easier to start keeping up with the world and stay caught up!

Interested in podcasts? Here are some links to help you get started:

Download iTunes: http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Download Awesomely Nerdy Podcasts (here are some of my favorites):

Front Page – Basically 8 minutes every day of some guy reading you the front page of the NY Times. If you only listen to this, you will at least have a basic idea of current events.

The Economist – Discussion of random articles from The Economist – also includes “The Week Ahead” which gives a great 12 minute overview of world events for the week.

ESPN: PTI – A daily audio version of the acclaimed ESPN show – surprisingly little is lost without the visual. A great treat for the end of the day commute home.
NBC Meet the Press – The weekly audio version of the show where republicans say what republicans are supposed to say and democrats say what democrats are supposed to say. This one isn’t so much fun as “necessary torture so you know what is going on in Washington.”

NPR: It’s All Politics – Two extremely silly and amusing men give a great rapid fire breakdown of the week’s political news in about 20 minutes.

NPR: Intelligence Squared – Oxford style debate by really smart people on really interesting topics. Is Russia Friend or Foe? – good question, I’d love to know.

60 Minutes - The weekly audio version of the show - just generally cool, easy to absorb, and interesting.

TEDTalks – Incredibly smart people talking about interesting stuff.