Pit Perspectives is a student-run podcast. We record your candid and anonymous opinions in The Pit, add commentary and supplementary materials, and create episodes on relevant social issues facing college students at UNC and across the country.
Pit Perspectives started with an observation- at a school as large as UNC, students tend to form small social groups. We go to class, eat meals, and spend time with the same friends every day, and this natural grouping can close doors to new perspectives that are traditionally associated with the transition to college.
Scroll down to learn more about how we make our episodes.
We recorded 406 student voices during the 2021-2022 school year.
Topic Selection
In our first year, we covered 9 topics; Greek Life, performative activism, the return to in-person classes, sex education and the orgasm gap, the glorification and exploitation of student-athletes, study drug use, affirmative action, and pit preaching.
We have three criteria for our topics:
The topic is relevant to college-age people.
The topic will produce a wide range of responses, ideally avoiding a simple “yes/no” dichotomy.
The topic is easily accessible to the average UNC student.
Accessibility
Our recording process is candid and anonymous; our microphones are for everyone and anyone. Standing in The Pit during lunch, we invite passing students to share their thoughts on our selected topics. These interactions are not interviews; our job is to answer clarifying questions about the topic and to press “record.”
We prompt our recordings with the same question every time: what do you think?
What do you think about affirmative action?
What do you think about hook-up culture at UNC?
What do you think about Adderall usage at UNC?
By asking students what they think, we’re able to collect opinions that are candid and unscripted. Our topics must be accessible enough that we can ask the average UNC student what they think, and they’ll have an answer. Additionally, we collect no identifying information from students who choose to record with us.
Content
Our episodes cover social, legal, political, and philosophical issues. Everything begins with student opinions:
What do they have to say?
What questions do they have?
What are the points of contention?
From here, we add commentary, context, statistics, and history to paint a complete picture of the student body’s view on the issue. See the images on the right for examples.
The Ethics of Pit Preaching: conversation and censorship at UNC covered student thoughts on the First Amendment, censorship on campus, and the productivity of religious organizations at UNC. The episode featured John Stuart Mill’s theory of the freedom of expression, and covered court cases such as Chaplinsky v NH, IOTA XI Sigma Chi Fraternity v George Mason University, and Morse v Frederick.
Sex Education: the orgasm gap and hook-up culture on UNC's campus used data collected in The Pit about the experiences of UNC students. This episode featured the first Pit Poll, a tool we used again in our two-part episode on student-athletes. This episode was also a breakthrough moment for Pit Perspectives into the personal lives of students on campus; shared experiences, common struggles, and peer-to-peer advice.
Student-Athletes at UNC Parts 1 and 2: Exploitation and Glorification were released after the Duke v. UNC home game that resulted in an unexpected loss for the Tar Heels. The episode dove into the treatment, expectations, and perceptions of student-athletes on campus; are they given too much or not enough credit?