The College Info Geek Podcast
Want to build a freelance career as a student? Or learn how to study abroad, or how to turn your life into a video game? This podcast helps listeners become more effective students and improve in several areas of life. The host, Thomas Frank, interviews tons of interesting people, including scientists who study the brain to the U.S. Secretary of Education. Episodes are a little longer than one hour and are released approximately every week.
How to Do Everything
In this podcast, hosts Mike Danforth and Ian Chilag of NPR discuss and answer listeners’ questions about topics that relate to, well, everything. People are invited to ask the hosts questions via their website. With the help of experts — and accompanied by humor and laughs — those questions are answered in each episode. Podcast topics have ranged from differentiating the presidential candidates to how to clean a ceiling fan. New podcast episodes are released approximately once a week.
The College Years
This program started as a college radio station in 2000 and became a podcast in 2004. The show is hosted by Jesse Thorn, who interviews dozens of pop culture and art personalities. Previous guests include Ira Glass and Art Spiegelman, and topics range from beyond the fringe, rebirth, and baseball. The episodes are not released as frequently as in months’ past, but there are plenty in the archives to keep you listening.
The Podcast History of Our World
Need a crash course to help you succeed in your world history class? This podcast presents the history of the world from the Big Bang to the Modern Age, all in 15-30 minute increments. Topics range from Israel, ancient China and Rome, just to name a few. The host, Rob Monaco, started the podcast when he was about to embark on a career as a history teacher, but hadn’t quite landed a job yet. In order to teach outside a classroom, he started The Podcast History of Our World as a way to make history enjoyable to the masses, and while there hasn’t been a new episode since 2016, the ones that do exist are worth listening to.
Keith and The Girl
This one of the most popular comedy podcasts you’ll find. The show is hosted by Keith Malley and his singer girlfriend, Chemda Khalili. The two talk about their daily adventures and current events. While the premise may not sound riveting, the show continues to increase in popularity with more than 50,000 listeners and is ranked in the Top Ten Podcasts by Podcast Alley. The shows are one hour and released each weekday.
Stuff You Should Know
Who names a continent? What is El Nino? How is silly putty made? These are some of the topics covered in the Stuff You Should Know podcast (which, incidentally, is brought to you by How Stuff Works). This show is a great way to learn small bits of information that will make you smarter and feed your curiosity. The show notes for each episode contains lots of reference links and additional reading if you want to learn even more information about a given topic. Each episode is about 45 minutes and released weekly.
Rooster Teeth
This show features the Rooster Teeth crew talking about comedy, gaming, films, and projects they’re currently doing. The podcast’s origins were rooted in Rooster Teeth’s long-running YouTube series, Red vs. Blue, as well as live-action shorts and comedy gameplays. The popularity of the videos led to the weekly podcast, which is extremely popular among 15-25-year-old males.
Good Job, Brain!
This is another podcast that hasn’t updated since 2017, but you should still listen to if you want to succeed on Jeopardy one day. It was a weekly show that was part quiz show and part offbeat news. The hosts—Karen, Colin, Dana, and Chris—love pub trivia, breakfast cereal, portmanteau words, and animal facts. “Good Job, Brain!” was born from their love of sharing trivia and a successful Kickstarter campaign. One episode features “sticky words,” a sticky quiz about desserts and glues, and the story of a bizarre (yet true!) wave of molasses that destroyed the city of Boston. Take your learning beyond the classroom, books and the Internet. With these podcasts, you’ll feel smarter and have some pretty entertaining listening at the same time.
