Throughout the course of the year my capstone has fluctuated, morphing into what it is now. My goal was to create a piece of work that takes people out of the stereotypical roles society has placed on them. For my capstone I wrote some of a script and filmed a scene from it. From the scene I wrote earlier in the year to the form it took in the manifestation of it as a video are different in some ways but the idea came through. I hope to continue to create videos and films that allow people to see themselves in all spaces and refine my creative skills in the process.

For my capstone, I wanted to open up a discussion about what it means to have an athlete’s mindset and how influential it can be on an individual’s life, especially for student-athletes. I decided that the best way to do this during the COVID-19 pandemic would be to host a podcast.

Hence, The Understanding Athletes Podcast was born. The Understanding Athletes Podcast contains five episodes in total, each ranging from 10-20 minutes in length. Each episode of the podcast features a different student-athlete, whom I interview about their experiences as a student-athlete and how the lessons that they have learned from those experiences better equip them to tackle challenges that they are faced with outside of sports and the classroom.

The goal of The Understanding Athletes Podcast is to educate individuals who have not experienced being a student-athlete about how impactful athletics can be for individuals who have experienced it. Athletics are more than just a sport, it is a way of life. Sports teach you how to conduct yourself on and off the mat/field/court, molding individuals into leaders, and I would like to make more people aware of how much having the mindset of an athlete can do for them.

I hope that The Understanding Athletes Podcast allows everyone to have a deeper understanding of what it means to be a student-athlete, and possibly motivates people to try a sport or athletic activity themselves. Thank you to all of the interviewees, as well as everyone else who has helped me throughout this process. Enjoy!

As I was deciding and brainstorming ideas for my capstone, I stumbled across a documentary on Netflix called “Social Dilemma”. In this documentary, they talked about the monster that is social media, That social media was created with good intentions, but it soon turned into a money-grabbing machine for many tech companies. I realized that this was something that was always in the back of my head, but I didn’t pay much attention to. Therefore, I created this podcast to learn other people’s point of views from my fellow classmates at SLA, in addition to discussing the pros and cons of social media and the internet. Within this podcast, the topics range from college, mental health, personal finance, and many more. The goal of this capstone is to help others who might possibly stumble upon the podcast to really stop, think about what’s being discussed, and hopefully take something away. I’ve linked the podcast playlist down below, feel free to check it out!

Link to playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLuPgjVNxdcweR34Obr_i4DrbkJ-YwUzb4