Tim Roe: What we're trying to say is make sure that it's student led and it's coming from those students.
Those thoughts and feelings, those questions get answered, but they also get aired and talked about and normalized as part of everyday kind of conversations.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome to Continuing Studies, a podcast for higher education podcasters to learn and get inspired.
I'm Neil McPhedran, founder of Podium Podcast Co, where we work with higher education podcasters.
Jennifer-Lee: And I'm Jennifer-Lee, founder of JPod Creations, podcasting is broadcasting.
We want you to know you're not alone.
In fact, there are many of you higher ed podcasters out there and we could all learn from each other.
Neil McPhedran: Jen, as we talk about before we get started with this episode, we want to encourage you to join the higher education podcaster community at HigherEdPods.com.
And for our Higher Ed PodCon in Chicago in July, we have a website up and going so you can pre register that it's HigherEdPodCon, HigherEdPodCon.com.
Jennifer-Lee: Oh, I'm excited for that.
Can't wait for July.
And HigherEdPods.com as you mentioned as well for the podcast network, we actually, when we talked to this next guest, we talked to them about the network.
And it's interesting because they have found other podcasts throughout that.
So they were thinking that they need to join this type of thing as well, because they've kind of started like a miniature network for what they're doing, because One in Five is also associated with, uh, the Uni Taster Guide.
So, they're expanding.
Neil McPhedran: That's right.
We talked with Tim and Matthew from the One in Five podcast.
If you recall in our previous episodes, we interviewed and chatted with,
Jennifer-Lee: Jon Cheek.
Neil McPhedran: From UniTaster Days.
One of his producers on that is Tim Roe.
We chatted with Tim and Matthew Whiteman of the One in Five podcast.
The One in Five is a university support podcast.
Created for disabled students by disabled students.
It's for those that are considering university.
And the name One in Five represents the One in Five people in the UK that have a disability.
That's tens of thousands of students with a disability go to university each year.
Great conversation we had with both Tim and Matthew.
Jennifer-Lee: This is a really unique podcast and I hope more institutions do something like this.
So let's get into it.
Neil McPhedran: Welcome Tim and Matthew.
It's so great to have you here today.
Tim Roe: Brilliant to be here, really looking forward to, to talking about podcasts and what we do and some of the experiences that we want to share today.
Matthew Whiteman: Thank you for having us.
Neil McPhedran: Let's start with you, Tim.
You work on a lot of podcasts, but maybe just sort of a quick little intro, if you can share with us and a bit about your background.
Tim Roe: Yeah, sure.
Thank you very much, Neil.
Yeah, so my name's Tim, Tim Roe.
Um, I'm currently working as a podcast producer, I suppose.
I kind of use that as a kind of Swiss army knife of all different things, um, that go around supporting people with their podcasts.
I'm working on about five or six podcasts at the moment.
Um, but I'm really excited to talk about the One in Five.
Bit of a brief overview.
My experience is I've been working kind of higher education for just over ten years now and teaching.
I've done lots of different kind of bits and pieces.
What we call over in the UK, wide anticipation of being working in different roles.
So increasing access for young people to access higher education.
So now that's not just university and there's higher degree apprenticeships.
There's lots of different routes in as well as university degrees and things.
And I guess my background was working within community groups, working in community development and wide anticipation that.
Kind of accidentally fell on a podcast podcasts through there, through working through projects.
And now three or four years later, I'm really proud to produce several of them, but that's kind of a bit of an overview of what I do and how I got there.
Matthew Whiteman: Hi, yeah.
My name is Matthew.
I'm a camera assistant that works in film and television at the moment.
I'm trying to sort of break into that industry.
But when I was studying at university was how I got involved with the One in Five podcast as a member of the student sort of team that we've recorded for the podcast.
And we all had our own creative input on it as well, which is quite nice.
So I'm just, you know, happy to be here and quite proud that, you know, the podcast has got out there and that someone else has seen it, listened to it and wants to talk to us about it.
So really great.
Thank you for having us.
Neil McPhedran: Good stuff.
Jennifer-Lee: We're glad to have you guys on.
We had Jon on, of course, from UniTaster Days.
And so I was listening to the podcast and, um, what I really enjoyed about it is that it is very unique.
We have never interviewed anybody taking the look at what it's like to have a disability and navigate this post secondary world.
And I was listening to episodes today and I think, you know, we take a lot of things for granted.
We take our health for granted.
Things that are more simple for a lot of others to do, like just an application process into a post secondary education.
You don't realize it's like there's a lot of people that struggle with this stuff.
And there's a lot of things that do need to change in just getting into university when it comes to a disability.
Can you talk a little bit about why you guys started this podcast?
Tim Roe: Yeah, I'll, I'll just start off.
So it's the One in Five podcast and our strap line is basically by disabled students for disabled students.
I myself, I have ADHD.
So that's into the fold of a kind of a learning disability as well.
So essentially statistically, one in five people in the UK are listed as having a disability.
Obviously there's many different ranges there, but the whole point of the miniseries is that it focuses five students who all have a range of different disabilities from physical to neurodiversity, to anxiety, to depression, to many different things.
And it follows all of their lived experiences as you access university.
So we start off with the diagnosis, what it is and their experiences and the identity of having that disability, and then how they access university and some of the key points as you go along.
We're working for this project that myself and John were very much in the background and we want it to be about the students.
It's about their lived experience solely.
Thousands of disabled students apply for university back here through UCAS, which is kind of a university colleges admission service, if anyone was wondering what that was.
Currently host the miniseries for other disabled students to take part in, but really quickly shout out to Jon and Joanie.
There's two different partnerships that's part of a massive kind of national project.
I'll try and do this as succinctly as possible, but basically there's a massive national project that's going on at the moment called UniConnect formerly called NCOP.
And there's twenty-nine different partnerships strategically put around the UK in different locations, different universities, colleges, and schools in those areas.
And essentially they have target students that they work with.
So students that will have the ability to go on to university, but don't necessarily access university, so they have the, the grades to do so for many different reasons.
And those two partnerships.
So we had one in Yorkshire where Matthew was from and studying, and then we had one from Kent.
Anyway, these two partnerships worked together and put a bid in because they wanted to do a miniseries that does just that, basically captures the lived experiences of five disabled students.
Matthew Whiteman: I got involved through, I remember seeing an email when I was at university and they were looking for students with disabilities.
No matter what year or course they were doing or what year of study they were in, uh, to be involved in this project.
So I kind of emailed back to say that I could, you know, I'd be a good fit for the podcast to talk about my experience with dyslexia, how that impacts it, my application for university, how it impacts my studies and how the university helped me get an official diagnosis for that as well.
And I was lucky enough to get involved with it.
And as Tim said, the other four students were all from Kent, so it was kind of a nice partnership between Kent Medway and the team in Yorkshire as well.
But yeah, so we did six episodes talking about the different steps of university, whether that was considering it after your A levels, applying, studying whilst you're there and getting through exams and things like that and it was just a really rewarding experience.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
So it always was intended to be this limited mini series, correct?
That was sort of always the intention going into it.
Tim Roe: Yeah.
I mean, it was kind of like, we want to do a podcast and that was cool.
It was coming from the two partnerships.
We have these students like Matthew.
So I'm just going to give a shout out to all five students here.
So we have obviously Matthew who joined us today.
We have Dominique, Jessica, Alice, and Kyle.
They all represent different lived experience of having disabilities and access in university.
But it was basically just a kind of an idea.
What can we do?
Myself and Jon, because of the work that we did on the Uni Guide podcast, we were approached by those two partnerships because they liked that we were very student focused.
We put our students front and center and it was all about their experiences.
So really what we did was we got all the students together, essentially got to know and find out what they wanted to do.
And from gathering kind of their experiences come out with a logical thread.
So it actually follows and mimics almost how students enter university, get on, study with university and then end university with a bit more of a kind of like reflectfulness.
So there's that kind of that synergy, that journey of going through.
So I thought a mini series really was probably the best way to capture that.
But it was very much a decision that came as a group.
Matthew Whiteman: I remember when it finished, we were all kind of sad that that was kind of the end of it.
And I think you did have a brief discussion as a group of like, could we push for a second series?
But it just kind of seemed more natural to keep it where it was, you know, maybe in the future they might do another series with a different group of students.
I think that'd be quite good to get a wider range of people involved from different year groups and across the country, across the UK.
But yeah, the miniseries element, that was how it was pitched anyway when we were all brought on board, which was quite nice knowing that we weren't restricted to being like having to do twenty or thirty odd episodes.
It was just a nice small chunk of time where we got to record together and chat about stuff.
Jennifer-Lee: I wish you guys would keep going because I do feel like there are other disabilities that you did not explore that probably have some barriers to entry.
Like I have a friend that's in a wheelchair and I would assume that there's kids with more physical disabilities that probably when they're looking for universities feel like, am I going to be able to travel around the campus?
Are there some online learnings that are able to accommodate me?
And even hearing the episode, and you guys did touch upon somebody that had fibromyalgia, and it was Kyle, and he was just saying like how much pain he was in all the time.
So I feel like people could really relate to that, that, that do have chronic pain or maybe a more physical disability, like being in a wheelchair or something.
Tim Roe: Absolutely.
And try and get all those different experiences and different disabilities.
Absolutely.
There's lots of things that I became aware from this podcast through Kyle, as you mentioned, kind of co morbidity.
So, you know, fibromyalgia and ADHD, and there was links there to mental health and moods.
And how other things kind of affect that, because that's, you know, people usually go, oh, I've got this, I've got that potentially, I've got this as a diagnosis, but there's a whole way of how different disabilities can kind of react with each other and how that kind of affects a student.
If you think, you know, concentration levels.
It's the first time away from home.
It's that social element.
You're almost, you're an adult, aren't you?
You're choosing when you get up, you can go to lectures.
It's not like school where you have to come in at, you know, a set time in the morning and all them kind of things I think would have been fascinating to do and drill down to, but we had to kind of a set amount of time and we'd love to do more.
Um, we'd definitely love to do more.
I think a little bit more on that is as the process went on, we really wanted it to be by students for students and not just have that as a buzzword, from what I saw as a producer wanting to capture everything they come up with their own questions.
They came up with the content that they wanted to share.
And then it was very much like, I'm sure you have this with your podcast yourself, we wanted to make them as comfortable as possible, but it does take time for them to feel that they own that space.
And then as the episodes went on, there was more confident, there was more kind of back and forth.
And Jon, who was kind of the host at the time, went more into the background.
And it was just like, okay, we're talking about this, we'll just go over, Matthew start talking about his experience of dyslexia.
And then Alex would come in.
And then it basically they would take over and it was trying to capture the lived experience in a very natural way.
Matthew Whiteman: Yeah, I mean, I definitely want to reiterate that you and Jon did a great job making us all feel really comfortable.
It didn't feel like we were all there to just answer questions you were throwing at us.
You made it feel very kind of like, informative, and the three of us or four of us on each episode were actually having the conversation, which felt really nice.
It felt kind of like you said, student led, which is really good.
And like I said, I was the only student not from Kent, so at first I did feel a bit like the outsider, but very quickly I got to know everyone, and everyone was really welcoming to me, so that was quite nice.
And I think in the future, if you were to bring it back, maybe do it with students from across different universities across the country, maybe with different uh, lived experiences dealing with different disabilities.
Because I could only really talk about my own perspective, but it was really interesting to hear from other people what their experience was.
And you kind of gain a new insight from that.
And I hope that that was, you know, informative for a lot of people that chose to listen in.
Tim Roe: It would be great to kind of maybe think about collaborating across different countries, different experiences, different continents, you know, what is the shared experience here?
How are things different?
Can we get together and look at the positives and negatives of experiences?
And then maybe learn from that and, you know, take things away from it.
Because I guess that in terms of one in five, that statistics in the UK, I don't think the world statistics are much different.
I think it's one in five, one in six, you know, around that kind of point.
But obviously that comparison or getting people together would be an interesting thing to do.
Neil McPhedran: That's really interesting.
We'll be putting your contact, uh, information in the show notes, so if anyone's listening that wants to reach out to Tim and talk to him about that, that would be great.
But I want to go back to a couple minutes ago when you were explaining how you embarked on the project, which is really interesting of, you did a call out for students and then you had your five and then you didn't try to control it, it sounds like.
As you said, you pulled everyone together and you let who showed up to participate and what they wanted to say, kind of shape shift and direct where you were going with it.
I think that's an interesting angle.
I think, as podcasters, and you work on a whole bunch of podcasts.
So probably an initial feeling of you want to kind of like control it a little bit more, drive it a little bit more and direct it a little bit more.
So tell me about that.
'Cause I think that's really interesting to sort of give up a bit of that control to the students, which I think totally makes sense for what you're doing.
But I just, I really liked that approach.
Tim Roe: We had several conversations with the students, collected as much kind of experience and content, what they wanted it to be.
What they felt comfortable with.
So what I would gather from that is, they would come up with their own questions or I would come up with, say, a maximum of four or five questions and then see how much content we could get to answer that in different ways and different experiences, whether that's a physical disability or neurodiversity, et cetera.
And that was it.
We basically shaped that and we made sure that we agreed the questions that would, that would take part.
We kind of planned this in August, 2023.
And then we started releasing in February, 2024.
They basically, yeah, we got the students together and they controlled the destiny of the podcast really.
We agreed rough kind of duration of how it would be.
And WhatsApp, I have to say it was a massive thing.
Wasn't it Matthew?
I'm sure annoyed you a lot.
Can you do this at six thirty?
And I'm praying going, can we at least have three of the five or two of the five?
Can I get a good contrast of the different disabilities that, you know, to get that lived experience in there?
So the WhatsApp was going constantly through August and September.
And then we've had to think about in the UK, it'd be the same with you with different kind of academic calendars, there's pressures there.
So we're thinking, when do we do a release date?
The students wanted to have it out as soon as possible.
They were proud of what we were doing.
There was momentum there.
We wanted to keep that going.
But at the same time, we've gotta think about things like they've got exams, they've got their work.
In the UK, in terms of the academic calendar, there's things like, we have a careers week in March, which was huge.
We didn't want it to get lost in that different kind of phases of the year in the January period and, and then obviously exams in summer.
So they're all kind of things that we had to think about.
The students perspective taking part, but also, the listener as well, thinking about the listener.
When they're going to shoot it, when can we maximize the best time?
There's all sorts of different kind of awareness days and different months.
So that was a consideration.
But you know, we were just keeping in constant contact through WhatsApp.
Matthew Whiteman: Uh, WhatsApp was totally a lifesaver.
It was just the easiest way to kind of keep in communication with each other and share ideas in a group space rather than having to like contact each other separately.
So that was quite nice.
And it kind of added to that space of feeling very comfortable.
And like everyone was just on the same page.
And it wasn't like they were all sort of apart from, even though we were all physically different places across the country.
We felt like we were together in both the planning and the recording as well, which was nice.
And I remember we had a big discussion about how we'd release the podcast.
I remember some of us wanted it to go out straight away.
Some of us wanted to wait.
And then there was that pressure and deadlines of like, well, this award season is coming up or this event's coming up or whatever, that maybe it'd be good to get out beforehand.
And we had a big, long discussion as a group, not just Tim and, and Jon, which is quite nice that all, all seven of us had a chat about how are we going to release this and what's the best way to go about it.
So again, adding to that feeling like it was student led, but we were all involved together and it wasn't just like we were having to hit this box, hit this box, hit, like talk about this.
We, it was all very sort of, we kind of led it together.
Jennifer-Lee: I love the fact though that you guys really thought about awareness days and you thought about different events because that's the one thing that when we work with people, we really stress that like a lot of people don't think about that type of stuff.
And we add it into the strategy.
People just want to launch it, but you got to launch it the right way.
So I really applaud you for doing that.
Besides doing a lot of work, and podcasting work, why do you think other people in the academic space, why do they not do a similar podcast with people with disabilities or talking about how disabilities are affected throughout the university process?
From the beginning to application to being a student?
Tim Roe: Yeah, it's a really good question.
It's something that needs to be worked on.
I mean, we have things in place in the UK in terms of like UCAS when you apply for university, you have to kind of declare which disability you have.
But to do that, you know, you may need a diagnosis in order to get support.
And I guess in a way, kind of university and the support that our universities provide students has almost kind of categorized and help disability.
So for example, you know, five, ten years ago, people would have thought a physical disability, so in a wheelchair, for example, but it's breaking them things down.
And now we have a whole range of different understanding around kind of neurodiversity, ASD, ADHD, anxiety, dyspraxia, dyslexia, et cetera.
And there's a lot of money in the UK that goes to support these students in terms of laptops and time and things like that.
To go back to your question, I think people don't like talking about challenges and barriers sometimes.
They like to think about, this is how you do it.
You apply.
Maybe we don't have the best kind of representation of the population, the students.
So for example, where in one in five of the population will have a disability, but, you know, tens of thousands of UK students every year with disabilities apply.
And they must have these thoughts that run through your head, like, you know, will I be supported for this and that?
And how do I adjust?
So I think we need to be more honest and we need to think about, particularly if our audiences are students.
What are those questions?
And if you don't know the answer to that, go out and find it through the students.
What are the challenges that people are having?
Have those conversations as early as possible in schools and colleges before, you know, they reach seventeen, eighteen to apply for universities.
But really, I guess what we're trying to say is make sure that it's student led and it's coming from those students, those thoughts and feelings, those questions get answered.
But they also get aired and talked about and normalized as part of everyday kind of conversations.
Matthew Whiteman: Yeah, I remember when I was applying for university, I didn't see anything like this, any kind of platform like this at all, which was aimed at kind of building more awareness, but also being a nice, you know, guide for students that have a disability trying to go through that process.
I remember when you, you read on a website or on UCAS's website, as Tim said before, about, you know, what does each university offer?
There would always be a section where they'd say, this is the support you might get if you're a student with a disability, but it never felt that clear and concise.
And it just felt like this big, even though they were showcasing it, they maybe weren't showcasing it enough and it still felt like a barrier.
So I think if I had something like this going into university to support me through the process would have felt a lot better.
I mean, I didn't even know about the one in five being a statistic beforehand, which is quite, it's crazy how many people that kind of affects across the whole country and over the world as well.
So yeah, I mean, maybe there were other podcasts or mini series or TV shows that kind of delve into these issues, but the fact that we couldn't really easily find one is telling.
That if they did exist, more light should have been shown on them.
And so making more things like this podcast, like the One in Five, sort of help to get that message out there a bit more and make it a bit more in the public consciousness, which I think was good.
Jennifer-Lee: Well, and I applaud you guys for being so honest on the podcast, because it's not easy to open up about disabilities either and let people know what you're going through.
And I remember one of the episodes I was listening to, and they said they got admitted into the university, but to be believed that they actually had, I think it was ADHD, they had to wait for their, like a test.
And then the test didn't actually even happen to like their second semester.
And I was like, it's already difficult dealing with this stuff and being able to do the classes.
And then you've got to wait to prove that you have it.
That's got to be hard too.
Tim Roe: Absolutely.
And then obviously with, you know, things with attention, time management, et cetera.
All those things and pressures and filling in forms, admin, going online, you know, collecting all the proof and qualifications you need and obviously having to wait whilst other people are applying for university as well.
That's another factor as well.
Matthew, I know the answer to this because we've shared this before, but in terms of yourself, like you had dyslexia.
You knew you had dyslexia going into university, but, like, how did you find that process of, like, applying?
Matthew Whiteman: Yeah, I mean, I knew I had dyslexia beforehand, because in high school and college they do kind of some minimal level tests to see if students have ADHD or dyslexia or other learning disabilities, because then that might affect their exams, so you're given extra time and support in that way to complete them.
Um, but when I went to apply for university, I didn't have any official documentation.
So it wasn't really enough to prove, oh, I have dyslexia, can I get the support?
So I had to go through the process again.
And the Uni did give me, by going through the tests and the official process, I did get the official diagnosis, which I now have forever, which is really nice.
But it did take, I remember I started in September.
I didn't have the test until early December, I think.
And then I didn't get the actual diagnosis till after Christmas.
So maybe around mid January.
So I was already four months into my course before I actually got that.
Um, again, great that they supported me through that and got me that diagnosis, but the fact it took so long was quite frustrating and I can imagine it's frustrating for a lot of other students out there.
Um, I know that even outside of university, like if people are trying to go for a diagnosis for ADHD or any other kind of neurodivergence, it can take months, even years to get through that process in the UK.
So it's, it's frustrating for a lot of people.
And I think that was good that we highlighted that on the podcast and that hopefully something will be done to reduce those waiting times for future students.
Tim Roe: Yeah, absolutely.
Like, since COVID, ADHD diagnosis has gone up seven hundred percent in the UK.
So, different counties vary because the support and the size and the money they get from the government and et cetera.
But some places are waiting up to five to seven years to get that diagnosis confirmed through the tests.
And what's strange in a way is, at university, if you came into that, didn't get diagnosed, you could be diagnosed maybe quicker because you'll have access through the medical team or the mental health team, that can speed things up.
Because you're not going through maybe the same channels, but that's just an example of the crisis, I guess, of diagnosis and things that are going on.
So even more reason to talk about these things to normalize it.
The more you're normalizing those struggles or challenges, hopefully they get listened to by people who make the decisions and how you apply, how you get funding and how you get your support as well, so.
Neil McPhedran: As a limited mini series how does this and where does it live so that students can have access?
Earlier this morning we were chatting with another podcaster with a limited series and I was struck by the podcast apps and are really set up for new and inertia.
Like publishing, keeping going, and, and like how the charts work.
And then everything as far as discovery, is really all about pushing out new episodes and just sort of keeping that going.
In this case, that's not what this is about.
So where does the miniseries live so that it gets discovered, and this is such a fabulous resource, so that it can be accessed?
Tim Roe: So the first place we put it on, because like we said, we've worked with Jon for UniTaster Days.
If you go to the UniTaster Days website, it is hosted there for one.
But we've, we've done it through Acast.
That means through that hosting, it's out on Spotify, it's on Apple, it's on all the major podcasts you can get.
So it's available through there.
And then what we've done is we've invited colleges, schools, universities to basically embed the link as well.
Even I think Matthew, you've got it on your website as well.
That got a lot of kind of traction as well.
But the main one is one of the big successes we didn't really think about this when we started, but it's really logical.
We've talked about UCAS and applying for university.
It's actually embedded in UCAS website.
So that's the national website that all students.
Neil McPhedran: Oh fabulous.
Tim Roe: Going on to higher education, university, apprenticeships, et cetera, will go on and access that.
So it's embedded there on their web pages under disabled students, information and things like that.
And that was a real game changer.
And actually, just remembering now on the last episode, when we're doing a kind of more reflective how the things need to change and the things that we've talked about, how can we continue these conversations, uh, we were joined by a woman from UCAS as well.
And then it was like the students actually got to put quite pointed questions about how can we change the future for disabled students?
And then she was like, yeah, we'll get this embedded into the website, which was great.
And that's gained traction.
So more students now using those UCAS pages can access the One in Five as a free resource.
So yeah, on all channels and then embedded on those websites and things as well.
Jennifer-Lee: That's so smart, because you're doing no different than what backlinking is.
And the fact that you're getting your podcast embedded on other websites is awesome.
You guys are hustlers, because I think a lot of times when people are doing podcasts, in general, if it's limited, or if it's not, if it's ongoing, they don't find unique ways to keep it out there, especially if it's a guide for something.
And I think that's great.
You're making it happen.
A lot of people just think it's luck, but really, you got to really be pushing your podcast out there in different ways.
Neil McPhedran: Matthew, curious from, from you, I think what you explained is you saw this call for podcasters out there and you thought, hey, this could be interesting.
And so you joined and then as you've talked about, like, you met all these other students and you talked about the experience.
But coming out the other end, I, I know you said off the top you're in film, but how does this journey into podcasting affected or not affected your career choice or what you're interested in?
I'm sort of curious about that, as getting students involved into podcasting, kind of curious about how that can help on the other end when you come out of university.
Matthew Whiteman: Yeah, I mean, I was very lucky to be part of it and it's kind of opened more doors for me than I expected.
I never really, before I did this, I listened to a lot of podcasts, but I never considered it as an option.
So since then, I've done some odd things for Tim.
He has his own podcast called The Hurt Locker Pod, where I've done a few edits for him.
And I've taken a few pictures for some of his clients as well.
And as Tim said, I have like a portfolio website where I showcase my film work and I put it on there.
And I was quite surprised how many people that both I knew in, in real life, like friends and family, but also people that just came across my website, accessed the podcast through that, which is really nice.
And then most recently I've been quite lucky to, I've started working as like a social media editor for this podcast called the Press X to Continue, which is like a gaming podcast based here in the UK.
I managed to get that.
There was like a call out for it, but the main reason when I was going through the process of getting it was I mentioned being part of the One in Five podcast and the other experience I had editing with Tim and for other podcast stuff.
And that was kind of what allowed me access through to that work.
So yeah, it was really great to do.
It's more focused on, you know, getting this message out there and getting the podcast out to other students starting university.
It's also opened a lot of doors for me as well, which has been really nice.
Jennifer-Lee: I love that.
I keep telling my favorite story, all the time in this podcast, because we've talked to other people like the Stanford Storytelling Project where people have gotten jobs after these types of courses or this type of experience.
So I think that's amazing.
So there we go.
Tim Roe: We wanted to make sure that the young people were evidenced their work.
It wasn't just something that they took part in.
And that's it.
We created a page on LinkedIn for the whole podcast.
And what we did was we told you what the podcast was going to be, but we did it in installments as a teaser to try and build up an audience before, which was really helpful.
So my work in kind of higher education and wide anticipation, different universities, et cetera.
Some of the schools that the different students went to, some of the different partnerships, as we mentioned, those different regions, we all kind of like, so this is going to happen.
We put some teaser reels out, we put some of the shorts out of some of the amazing discussions that we're going to have.
And we said, this is going to come out in February, 2024, and we drip fed it.
And then we got kind of likes and traction.
And so they knew that it was going to come out.
And then from that other people contacting us from different kind of regions in the UK, whether they were local councils or.
local areas going, when is this going to come out or this is going to be a really useful resource.
And then from that, Matthew's done work for myself.
We've stayed in contact and we've kind of put a bit of a presence for the young people on LinkedIn, you know, what they did and how they contributed to different episodes.
And it's great to follow their journeys now, even though it's almost a year afterwards, I'm seeing stuff that Matthew's taking part in and, and Jessica, Matthew, Dominic, Kyle, as their journeys progressed.
As they were finishing the podcast, they were going on to finishing Uni in their third year and graduate.
So it's great to have those pop ups now and again, we're all kind of connected.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
We'll drop the link to the LinkedIn page in our show notes, but yeah, well, that's one of the things I always advise a lot of our podcasts we work with is to create a LinkedIn page for the show, especially in higher education, because there's a good university kind of connection, academia connection to, to LinkedIn, but then you can join it.
And then anyone who works on it, it pops up into their feeds.
But also when we put out a post about this episode, we'll do @ the show and then, and then that comes up too.
So thank you for sharing that, Tim.
That's a super smart tactic.
I really liked that.
Jennifer-Lee: You guys seem to be really switched on in this industry.
Is there anything, if you could go back and change it, if you were to do a new podcast tomorrow, what was something that you'd want to change in your process?
Tim Roe: As you say, you'd like to have as much different experiences as possible.
If we could have found students with the timeframe within those areas who are available with different disabilities to show that the different challenges there.
I think it would be nice to even go back and maybe have a bit of a reunion.
How are people getting on?
So they've gone to university, people have gotten engaged, they've gone on to work, different graduate jobs, but yeah, that would be good to do.
But I think, I don't know, I think we did it so quickly in such a short space of time.
And I think, how can we improve it?
Matthew, what do you think we could have done better looking back?
Matthew Whiteman: I think maybe looking back to try and, obviously, at the time we had the panel of five students already sorted by the time we started recording, but I think maybe if we were to gauge more opinions and more experiences from other disabled students, maybe what we could have done is in between recordings could have gone back to the university and said like, look, we're part of this podcast now, we're recording for it.
Are there any students that in the university do you think would maybe want to pass on any questions for us to answer on the podcast or things like that?
Or talk about anything if they wanted to, you know, it's, don't feel like they have to, but if they wanted to share their experiences with us, we could then promote that on the podcast.
I think that would have been really good to do.
I think, as you said, doing a reunion as well would be really nice, but I think it's also important that if we did bring the podcast back to do, maybe just continue on with, with new people, or at least maybe not everyone.
Just sort of mix up the selection a bit more because we get more of a range of experiences, support from different people as well.
But yeah, that's, that's just one thing that stuck out to me really.
Neil McPhedran: That's great.
This has been a really awesome conversation guys.
I think that we've learned a lot.
I think this is really interesting to dive into having such a large role students playing, I like the, for students, by students, way you've gone about it.
It makes a lot of sense.
Just tackling a very focused topic like this in a limited series, I think is great.
And then the way you guys did it, I think is really good.
Jennifer-Lee: I want them to start on that reunion episode.
And then we have a few more years.
Anyways, I think this is a fantastic conversation.
I'm glad that you guys joined us.
Neil McPhedran: Yeah.
Well, thank you so much, Tim and Matthew.
It's been amazing having you on and thank you so much for sharing about your podcasting journeys and about your podcast.
Jennifer-Lee: Yes.
Thank you.
Tim Roe: Thanks guys.
It's been a pleasure to talk to you.
Matthew Whiteman: Thank you for having us.
Neil McPhedran: Well, Jen, that was an excellent conversation we just had with Tim and Matthew.
I think it's really interesting to dig into their podcast.
I really like how it's a podcast for students by students.
And I, I really like sort of in general, how the UniTaster Guide with their two podcasts are leading more and more into having students have a big voice in the podcast itself, because that's who it's for, students.
Jennifer-Lee: Yeah.
Like the one we did with Jon Cheek, the UniTaster Guide, the UniTaster Days, what I liked about it is the fact that it's not institution specific.
Again, these are things that are important because it's helping the institutions also get prospective students because they're more aware about different things.
It's the same thing for this one, is with the One in Five it's talking about the different experiences people have with disabilities and how they can be accommodated, or how they can go to certain universities and, and find out different things and relate to, which is interesting because it's something that a lot of people don't think about.
Neil McPhedran: Absolutely.
Yeah.
I think it's a great resource for students and I like their approach too, that it's, it was really created as this mini series that was evergreen content.
That can be accessed over a long period of time, and it isn't necessarily, they have to keep putting out more and more episodes.
I like their approach there.
Jennifer-Lee: Love it.
Okay.
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