Making Pittsburgh Plates has really taught me a lot about how podcasts come together. In our first episode, we interviewed a Polish restaurant owner named Helen, and in our second episode, we interviewed Saurin, who is a coffee sustainability expert. Both interviews helped us understand how food connects to culture in Pittsburgh, and they pushed us to improve our recording and editing skills.

The feedback we received has been constructive and reasonable. Especially, people enjoy how natural our interviews are. I’ve been surprised by the interest in our coffee episode specifically. If there were ever a Season 2, we would work on clearer audio and shorter, more organized episodes.

In this class, if a new student took it, I would tell them to start editing early because it takes much more time than they expect. If we continued to podcast, I would want to explore more immigrant-owned businesses in the city.

Overall, this class changed how I see podcasting. It’s a lot more work than just recording simple conversations. It also made me appreciate Pittsburgh’s culture more deeply.