Kent Uni Stories: An Interview with George Fay

(Image courtesy of George Fay)

15th November 2021

By Elle Summers

Each of us have our own stories at UKC as we embark on our university journey, but do you ever stop to think about how these memories may unfortunately fade into a blur of just our overall experience? Well George Fay, a third-year Law student, has made sure the stories of his time at UKC are kept timeless through the medium of podcast.

Kent Uni Stories is a podcast hosted and created by George, talking to other students about their time at Kent, tackling topics from women’s safety to mental health. George has taken on these topics, exploring them in an informal setting that UKC students can access, relate to and learn from. I had the pleasure of speaking with George about his work with his podcast, giving me a greater insight into his inspiration, behind the scenes and his plans for his podcast in the future.

Whilst talking with George he expressed how important it was for him that this podcast act as ‘a record of my uni experience’ holding his memories from university forever. George best described Kent Uni Stories as acting as ‘a time capsule,’ through how the interviews he conducts will keep these conversations with his friends alive, and in years to come they can look back and see what was important to them now, what their worries were and exactly where they were in their lives.

I asked George about the mental health series his podcast covers to which he gave a greater insight by explaining, ‘because of lockdown I wanted to talk about the importance of maintaining mental health and talking about how people are … it is very handy as my mum’s a therapist, so I invited her on and we had a chat about good mental wellbeing techniques.’

When asked to explain this further, George told me about how he and his mum ‘covered techniques in grounding yourself if you’re feeling anxious, or good well-being moves to make such as getting outside if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, talking to people, the stigma of men’s mental health, and some issues that people have talking to their parents.’

Even though we have returned to basically normal life, the conversations George started in lockdown are still so important today. They highlight the need to check in your friends, for they may really be struggling behind closed doors. Some people may feel they can’t talk to their parents about their own mental health, as they know their parents are already struggling with their own.

Yet George’s mum raised the point that ‘it might actually bring you closer together as you have a shared experience that you’re able to openly discuss with each other… you’re both together in this situation.’

This really interested me, as I had never considered it this way myself, and so this episode of George’s podcast opened my eyes to a different perspective, highlighting to me the importance of these types of conversations.

‘A lot of the time people talk, but don’t really listen.’

Discussing the behind the scenes of Kent Uni Stories, George stated: ‘I initially started a podcast with my friend Liam before in summer of 2020 … to try and test the waters … and then I took the equipment from that to uni and started Kent Uni Stories.’

George explained how his set up is ‘a laptop with an extension lead plugged into it and two USB microphones and then I’ve got some mixing software which inputs all the audio information … and then I get feedback through my headphones of what we sound like … and then I click record.’

George spoke about how ‘the podcast format is good because it just feels like you’re having a natural conversation but then it’s there forever.’

Talking about his guests on his podcast, George explained that ‘so far, I’ve spoken to my mates from Uni and my mum, mostly because they all feel comfortable talking to me, and when they feel comfortable, they’re a lot better at long form conversations.’

But he expressed a wish to push his interviews further stating, ‘I want to get the lecturers perspective, to hear Kent Uni stories from the other side of the story.’

This would be an interesting next step for Kent Uni Stories, as it would provide the flip side of the coin in terms of the experiences people have at university. Sometimes we can get so caught up in our student community that we don’t take the time to realise how involved lecturers are in forming our university experience, and so to bring this to the forefront would be highly interesting to listen to.

One part of George’s podcast I wanted to talk to him about was his episode on women’s safety. Here, he and his friend Hope have an open and honest conversation about how Hope herself has at times felt unsafe and measures she has felt she has had to put in place to keep herself out of danger. I thought it very important that George had chosen to use his platform to discuss this issue and be open to learn in recording about how women can feel.

George told me about how ‘I learnt that there was a lot that I wasn’t aware of. There has never been a time that I’ve walked home and been worried. I’d never really given it that much thought.’

George talked about how ‘It’s not in my nature to ever want to make someone feel uncomfortable so knowing that girls do in those situations was pretty heart-breaking to hear.’

The conversation George chose to have with Hope was definitely a ‘necessary conversation to have’ and it’s nice to see such a university-oriented platform concerned with brining awareness to some of the issues that women face on a daily basis.

‘Why don’t we just teach the men not to do that.’

Turning the conversation back towards George’s plans for his podcast, we spoke about the potential for collaboration with Kent Union, to really bring his podcast to the forefront, and help span a greater audience, especially for the episodes in which George chooses to focus on such important issues such as women’s safety and mental health.

George told me ‘I have considered [working with KU]. I’m stuck between making sure I make the content I want to make and if I decide I’m going to do it, I will because it’s mine. Whereas if I’m working with another organisation, I’m worried they would try and overhaul my side of stuff and dictate what I have to do, which isn’t why is set up my podcast in the first place.’

‘That’s not saying I’d rule it out, if KU approached me and say we have some important problems we want you to cover as you have the perfect platform for this I’d be open to it, but I think the last thing I want is for my own creation to be taken away from me.’

Looking to the future, George concluded ‘I have not decided what to do with the podcast once I’ve graduated, I may want to pass it on to someone who is still at Uni and keep it going and let them pick up the legacy. I just need to find the right person who is willing to do it.’

Kent Uni Stories podcast can be found on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Described in three words by George himself as ‘fun, informative and honest’, I would definitely recommend you check it out! George can be found on Instagram here where he does mainly all of his advertising for his upcoming episodes, yet he did explain how ‘word of mouth is quite a big way of being advertised.’