200: Sharing the Love: GSF’s Impact on First-Gen BIPOC Students

Dra. Yvette Martinez-Vu 0:01

Welcome back, everyone to another episode of the Grad School Femtoring Podcast. This is your host, Doctora Yvette. Today is a milestone episode we have reached episode 200. Can you believe it? And this year, we're also going to reach the fourth year of podcasting in general. The Grad School Femtoring Podcast is turning four in October.

And so today I thought I'd discuss and reflect on my journey, podcasting and the impact that I believe this podcast has made on first gen BIPOC students, first gen BIPOCs, based on the information that I've received the memos, the reviews, the emails, the DMs, from all of you who have been longtime listeners, I hear you, I see you, I feel you, I appreciate you.

And so let's go back to year 2019. I was the Associate Director of the McNair Scholars Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And at the time, I noticed that I kept hearing the same questions from the students that that I advised at the time, over and over and over again. And I thought to myself, There's got to be a better way for me to do this. I got to develop a system, I keep repeating myself, what can I do.

And at the time, I was actively involved in another podcast project with the Chicana Motherwork collective. And so I had already had a few years of podcasting experience. And I thought to myself, well, I'm already having to do research for them. For the Chicana Motherwork podcast, we're trying to figure out if there was a better way easier way for us to record our episodes, and I ran into an app for podcasting that I thought would be useful to try out. And I tested it out asking myself, okay, if I had a podcast, what what what would I call it? What do I talk a lot about? Grad school. And what do I do a lot? I femtor. I'm a feminist mentor, I mentor through an intersectional feminist lens.

And so I called it Grad School Femtoring. And I tested it out by recording the first few episodes related to the most common questions I received. And of course, because I was working for a graduate school preparation program, they were all episodes related to the grad school application process. That means if you go back to my first few episodes, you will notice they are all about different components of the application process. How to create a grad school list, how to write a statement of purpose, a personal statement, navigating the GRE, how to request letters of rec. Why? Because that's what the information that my students needed.

And I started that way by sharing these episodes with my students who then shared it with their friends. And then eventually the podcast over time started to grow. And then two years later, was when I decided to leave my position there and leave higher ed altogether to pursue moving abroad, and to start my own business where I could provide academic coaching and speaking services nationwide, so that I could hopefully have a bigger impact share this information widely. Why? Because I got frustrated that there was only so much that I could do on my campus.

I would see receive requests to be a mentor to students outside of my program. And I didn't have the bandwidth or the capacity to take them on. And so I would always share resources, share my podcast episodes with them, and redirect them to other individuals who could support them. But I want it to be able to provide a space a resource that that could be shared outside of my institution, too. And so the podcast continued to it stayed with me as I left that position. And as I moved abroad, and over the last couple of years I've heard from countless of you I mean, I have a whole folder, my brag bank folder with snippets of positive memos I've received from you all.

I know that dozens of you at minimum, have gotten into grad school with the support of my podcast episodes. I know that just as many of you have felt less alone have been, have regained a sense of motivation and confidence because you realize that the feelings that you have been having the thoughts that you have been having are not just happening to you. It's it's systemic, it's social, its socio cultural, its institutional. It's not that there's anything wrong with you. It's that there are a lot of spaces that were part of in higher ed that were not built for us.

And also, since I started doing the podcasts, now, it's 2023, my podcast is considered a top rated show. It's also one of the top globally shared shows. It's in the top 10% most followed, and globally shared podcasts on Spotify. I know that my podcast has been assigned to multiple courses in various different departments, ranging from anthropology, sociology, Chicanx studies, higher education, and disability studies. And the latter one is our recent one. I have heard from a listener, who she is a director of a STEM program, and is taking a certification program on disability services in higher ed. And she shared my podcast episode with her classmates, one of the ones related to disability studies. I have a couple of different episodes on the topic of disability.

I've also heard from listeners who have appreciated me opening up more about chronic illness opening up more about neurodivergence, individuals who they themselves then were inspired to pursue their own formal assessment process to determine if they could get a diagnosis and get access to accommodations that could potentially change their lives in positive ways. I have heard from individuals who were ashamed to consider themselves disabled, and now are starting to release that shame and to feel more empowered in embracing all of who they are, even if they like me, have invisible and or dynamic disabilities.

And so this prompts me to wonder where will the podcast go in the future? And I am actually not sure about that. I know that I would like to continue the podcast continue to work, I will keep doing it for as long as it continues to be nourishing and fulfilling to me. Although it is a lot of work. What are the things that I don't share about enough, and I do have a post on Instagram from June where I discuss the different steps involved in putting together this podcast. And let me quickly actually go over those steps so that you have an idea of everything that I do on my own to provide you with a weekly episode. Yes, I'm a one woman show. I did have support with a VA for some of the podcast transcripts. But right now, I'm still a one person show because of my own budget restraints. And this is what I do.

I first have to come up with a podcast episode topic, then I search for a guest and send them an invite. I will email them to reach out see if they're interested. Some of them want to schedule a pre call. So we'll have a pre meeting of half an hour to an hour to brainstorm topics. Then we'll schedule the recording itself and that takes 30 minutes to an hour to record. And then I've got to do the podcast audio editing. And usually I don't do any fancy editing, it's editing the beginning and end of the episode audio file and sometimes in the middle. If there is any issue with the sound in the middle of the episode.

I then have to upload that audio file to my podcast hosts. I also upload it to YouTube, where I share the video and I upload the file to my transcription software. From there I need to generate the transcript and it's not one and done. I have to go in and manually edit every single line of the transcript to make sure that it's readable. And yes, sometimes I might miss a typo here and there. But I try to make sure that the transcript is not just one block of text that it's readable to anyone who downloads the episode transcripts on my website. And I have heard from individuals who do rely on the transcript. And so that continues to motivate me to continue to provide these transcripts, even though it's an extra step, extra time and extra money. Because I pay for that transcription software. I do think it's worthwhile when it comes to accessibility.

So then after I edit that transcript, I have to draft show notes. So I've got to refamiliarize myself with the topic that we covered, generate a summary, add that summary, again, to my host, and to YouTube, and then I've got a schedule it to go out. And when I schedule that, I've got to upload the the guest's image or if I'm not using a guest image, I have to find some sort of, what is it, a stock image that I can use that reflects the topic of the of the episode. Then I create, I draft two to three social media posts. It might be reels, it might be carousel posts with multiple images and text. And I share those the week that the show comes out. I also before I share them, I email my guests copies of those flyers of those posts in advance so that they can approve them, edit them if they need to, before they go out.

The week that the show comes out, I share the fliers, I update my website. And when I update my website is it's actually me uploading manually the transcripts every week on the on the website. And then I gotta make website edits to make sure that my page for each episode is optimized for search engines so that people can find me. And then I share one last flyer, the day that the show comes out. I may go on my Instagram stories to again, remind people about the episode.

And that's it. And that happens once a week every week. And actually I try to batch a good portion of those steps in advance so that I don't have to be doing all of this all of the time, especially in light of my chronic illnesses and my flare ups, I cannot rely on being able to do this the day before an episode comes out. I'm not doing that anymore. In the future, I would love to be able to hire help. And when I can, I will. But for now I continue to be a one person show. And it's a whole lot of work. And I have one ad on this episode, on this podcast for now. And it doesn't even cover my hosting fees. It's pennies that I get from that ad.

I just want you to have an understanding of all the work that it takes for any solopreneur, any podcasters that do this on their own that do not hire help. It is a lot of work that we're taking on. And it's a labor of love. And we do it because it's a passion project, because we enjoy it, because we believe in it. But we also depend on you, our listeners to continue to share the work to continue to leave your reviews, your reviews actually make a difference you might not think so. It might only take you a minute or two to open up your apple podcasts app and search for our show. And leave two to three lines for your review.

But for us that a big deal for us, it means it's increasing our visibility. And so for me, I do believe in the mission of Grad School Femtoring I do believe in supporting and empowering first sent BIPOCs in reaching their biggest dreams. And for me to do that this is one vehicle through which I know that my message can be spread so that I can make information available even to individuals who cannot afford to work with me one on one, or through my group coaching or through my workshops, etc.

Yeah, that's what that's what goes on behind the scenes. I continue to really really enjoy hearing from you in whatever way that you decide to reach out to me on social media, Instagram and LinkedIn are where I'm most active. Whether it's via email, I have heard from you all, you can always email me with with your reactions to episodes at gradschoolfemtoring@gmail.com

We will see what happens for the future of Grad School Femtoring. I would like to eventually be nominated for more awards and hopefully get one a podcasting award in the future. I would love to be able to again, like I mentioned earlier, hire help. I would love to start inviting bigger name people and continue to balance it out with folks who are, who are in the thick of it. I still enjoy having a broad range of guests. I like having folks that I reach out to, I like having folks that reach out to me. I like occasionally putting up a flyer on my social media to say, hey, I'm looking for guests. These are topics I want to cover, reach out to me. I like to open all kinds of doors, not just side doors for people that know me but front doors, back doors, all the doors are open.

If you have an idea if you want to be a guest, send me your pitch. Send me an email with a couple of lines why you want to be on the show. So who you are, why you want to be on the show and what topic you want to cover. And I'd be, I would love love love to consider having you on the show so that we can continue to spread the message of empowering first gen BIPOCs, of demystifying higher ed, of teaching personal development, teaching about sustainable productivity, teaching about social justice and teaching about living aligned lives that are fulfilling for us despite our whatever circumstances that we have going on.

That's it for this week's show. I wanted to keep it short and sweet. It's been, it's been a lot, 200 episodes. I am incredibly proud and I am also incredibly grateful to you for staying with me during this time and for those of y'all that are new for joining us, if you, this is the perfect time to share the love if you want to continue to hear from me for 200 more episodes, let me know reach out, leave a review share this with a friend. I appreciate you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai