Starting a podcast and studying at Georgetown
Chatting to Sydney Yin about The Sproutcast and what US college is like
Sydney Yin is currently studying Science, Technology and International Affairs at Georgetown University in the USA. During COVID, she moved back to Australia temporarily, working for a financial institution, a fintech and a VC fund- Folklore Ventures. She currently co-hosts a podcast with her friend Vivian Yu- The Sproutcast- a podcast for young people finding their place in the world and paving a way to an impactful career.
What were your motivations for starting The Sproutcast?
I’ve been friends with my co-host Vivian since high school. We would always find ourselves speaking to cool people in tech and finance about their jobs and wanted to share these discussions with more people.
Another key motivation is my personal love of podcasts, although there are so few podcasts aimed at the experiences of young people. I think it’s really important to create content in this space because we, as young people, have so many opportunities to do what we want with our lives and create an impact in the world. It’s just a matter of which direction to choose.
Being able to hear these stories is a great way to open our minds to what we can do.
What’s a challenge that you’ve encountered while podcasting?
The biggest challenge has been getting to know our listeners. This is a big startup mantra - “know your customers”, but with podcasts, it’s difficult to know who’s actually listening. Podcasts are not like social media, where you can track everything. I wish there was some way to tap into people’s reactions as they listen.
For those looking to start their own show, how does your recording, editing and publishing process work?
The first step is to find our guests. We have to figure out what topics people are interested in and who would be a good guest to have. We reach out to them and then have a pre-recording conversation to build a relationship. If we are recording online, we use a platform called Riverside that records speakers locally. Vivian and I then take turns editing episodes, mainly using Audacity.
We don’t edit too heavily as we just want to showcase the conversation as is.
We then distribute episodes using Anchor and promote the episodes on social media.
Who’s your dream guest and why?
This question echoes the classic - who’s your dream dinner guest - dead or alive? So taking the question similarly, my dream guest would be Jane Austen. She’s my favourite author and the coolest lady ever. Aside from her incredible writing, I love the witty commentary she has about society and particularly women’s place in the world. I’d love to hear how she would think and talk about our society today.
What was the process you went through to get into Georgetown Uni after high school in Australia?
I knew I wanted to go to college overseas quite early, after going on French exchange in Year 10. That’s when I started the process of looking into US colleges and did research into what the experience was actually like and what the application process was. To summarise, I had to do the SATs throughout Year 12, get decent grades in the HSC and plan my extracurricular activities to help shape a narrative for what I wanted to study and why I wanted to study it.
Now that I am in the process of applying to jobs and grad roles I’ve come to realise how important it is to have a ‘story’ - a cohesive narrative for why you want to do what you want to do.
It just happened that I learned this process during the college application process.
Was there a culture shock starting school in the US?
Definitely, in the beginning, it was a shock. I don’t know if this is an American thing or a Georgetown thing but I was quite surprised by how ambitious, driven, eloquent and passionate everyone around me was. Everyone has an opinion about almost everything, which has been quite different to my experience in Australia.
What I think is great though is that there is a real culture of standing up for what you believe in. If you see something you don’t like you are encouraged to speak up about it which is something I really admire.
What’s a common myth about college in the US?
There’s a very Hollywood depiction of college life which is all about partying. To some degree it is true, but it’s much more low-key in real life. People are equally intense about their academics and career.
What’s something you’ve learned more about recently?
At uni, I’m studying a program focused on energy security. Recently, I’ve been very interested in learning more about this topic from a business and climate change angle. So, I’ve been trying to learn more about cleantech and how we can ensure energy security with renewables. So, every day, I’ve been trying to put aside an hour or two in the morning to dive in and learn more about the space.
I’m particularly interested in offshore wind as well as hydrogen and battery storage. Batteries in particular are fascinating because the big issue with renewables is that they are intermittent. For example, solar energy is not produced at night time. This makes it very important to have efficient battery storage solutions.
Where can people find The Sproutcast and/or connect with you?
You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. We are also on Instagram and LinkedIn.
I’m also on LinkedIn if you want to connect personally.
Want to know how you can take the first step to start your side hustle like Sydney? Be sure to follow Textbook Ventures’ social links here, and subscribe to our newsletter to hear more stories from young people making an impact.
