“The Coffee Pod” podcast addresses self-help and advice

by ABBY KNOWLES

Staff Writer

While sitting in the dining hall with my friend Ally Tingen at the beginning of the fall semester, we brainstormed ideas of how to get more involved at UMW and make more connections with all kinds of people. Since COVID, it has been a struggle to meet people face to face and to develop connections, so we both wanted to step out of our comfort zone with something that would deepen our connections with others. We came up with the idea of doing a podcast where we would talk about issues that we face in society today, with the hope of helping others on campus in similar situations. Unfortunately, classes started to pick up and we got so busy that we left behind the plan to start a podcast. Once classes slowed down, we picked up the thought again and worked towards the early steps in having a podcast. 

And that was where “The Coffee Pod” began.

Ally, co-founder of “The Coffee Pod” and a sophomore psychology major, is also ecstatic about the podcast. 

“I’ve always loved the idea of helping younger girls with situations that I would’ve wanted advice on,” she said. “I absolutely love listening to podcasts; they are a way to decompress for me, and it’s even more rewarding being able to do that for other people.”

Our dynamic works well because I usually work with SoundTrap and Ally has a passion for designing graphics. She said she “loves making graphics for our social media on Canva and also creating her own work on Procreate and designing different templates whenever we post new episodes.” 

Once I began my Intro. to Digital Studies course, in which we discussed podcasting, I learned more about the software that makes a podcast possible. Without that knowledge, I would have had no idea where to start and probably never would have. It was then that the two of us decided we would take this seriously and begin a podcast all about self-help, empowerment and being genuine about our life experiences as young adults. 

Before we even recorded an episode, we needed a microphone. Spontaneously, we decided to race to Target and buy our first, and arguably the most important, piece of equipment. We then needed to give our podcast a name that encompassed us and our personalities but would also be catchy for our listeners. 

After throwing around a few ideas, we finally settled on “The Coffee Pod” because we are both obsessed with coffee and felt that it was unique, fresh and catchy. We envisioned our listeners sitting and having coffee with us, in a figurative sense, as we catch them up on our lives and the world around us. 

Then, we had to figure out what we wanted to accomplish with this podcast. In order for us to grow a steady support system through our following, we needed to give the listeners a motive to pay attention. Our first episode was recorded on my dorm floor, following a rough outline of what we planned to talk about. Little did we know how impactful this creative outlet would be in weeks to come.

Senior biomedical science major Bennett Varghese expressed his gratitude for the podcast. 

“I think the Coffee Pod is not just a regular podcast that gives advice and good tips, I think it is an experience and gives the listeners opportunities to be vulnerable with themselves because of the brutal honesty and vulnerability of the main hosts,” he said. 

He also went on to mention the importance of men understanding women and what we go through. 

“And for all the dudes, I think it’s a great tool to learn about what women think on the regular and how we make them feel by some subconscious actions,” he said.

We had looked at podcasts such as “Happy and Healthy” by Jeanine Amapola and “Anything Goes” by Emma Chamberlain as inspiration for our own. Each episode is approximately 50 minutes to an hour, and we record and edit on the software SoundTrap. We use RSS Feed, which is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites, as our way of uploading the episodes and looking at our analytics. 

Sophomore Ruth Rueb, majoring in elementary education, explained her appreciation for the podcast. 

“Just listening to [Abby] and Ally’s opinions and experiences on the topic [mental health] is really helpful to those who may be struggling with the topic,” she said. She specifically enjoyed the episode titled “Off Days Are Okay.”

In our “Off Days Are Okay” episode, we discussed how to deal with having off days, FOMO (fear of missing out) and mental health.
Our episodes are released every Sunday night at 7 p.m. and are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Amazon music. Since launching in Nov. 2021, we have posted eight total episodes about gratitude, navigating college life and relationships, just to name a few. In the future, we hope to continue growing our podcast and our audience.