It was a calm, windy day in September with school on the minds of students. With the opportunities at home, Coppell High School senior Shreya Mahadevan decided to hit the record button.

Missing the interaction with her peers during a pandemic, she decided to create a podcast to connect with them.

“I like to create a more personal connection with my audience,” Mahadevan said. “Since I’m almost 17, a lot of experiences I’ve been through and a lot of stories that happened in my life can relate to others when they listen to my podcast.”

Mahadevan has been at CHS for two years, and with her college apps and other extracurriculars, balancing it all has been something she hopes many people can relate to.

“CHS is very positive with everyone getting along, and I’ve met some really nice people,” Mahadevan said. “I have been doing a lot of school work and multitasking.”

Coppell High School engineering teacher Mike Yakubovsky created “The Engineering Podcast” which centers around creativity.

“I started doing podcasting as a way for students to work on communicating better to multiple audiences and reach out to more people,” Yakubovsky said. “They want to try different ways to reach more people and talk about the things we were doing. From a teacher standpoint, it was a way for them to learn communication skills.”

CHS engineering students can use this podcast to better understand engineering and connect with the other engineering students who make podcast episodes. Since it is a student-led initiative, students who listen to the podcast can relate to it because of the experiences that are shared in the classroom.

“The class ran the whole thing,” Yakubovsky said. “I helped guide them through that conversation. We had discussions in class about what the different roles would be, what the expectations were. One of the things the students needed to learn was working as a team, so I stepped back and let them handle the process.”

To those who are interested in starting a podcast, Mahadevan’s advice is to just begin.Coppell High School senior Shreya Mahadevan and engineering teacher Mike Yakubovsky both started podcasts to express their outlook on many of their interests. Mahedevan started this club with her free time during COVID-19. Due to this pandemic, both podcasters use their podcasts to discuss their expierences.

“Just be yourself,” Mahadevan said. “Do what makes you express yourself and be true to yourself.”

Follow Shrika Vurimi @shrikavurimi and @CHSCampusNews on Twitter.