Five showers, 18 days, 40 interviews and 6,387 miles later, two UF students had created a podcast called “Tuna Pasta.”
Takashi Wickes and Nikhil Thota, 21-year-old UF computer science seniors, landed summer internships in San Francisco for Summer 2017. With plane tickets more expensive than driving Wickes’ Honda Element, the roommates saw an opportunity to embark on an adventure.
The friends decided, as they passed through Atlanta, to create a podcast series based off the people they met during their cross-country trip.
“We knew we wanted to make some type of creative thing, and what we really wanted to make was a podcast,” Wickes said.
The name of the podcast came from a health-conscious meal they prepared nearly daily — protein-enhanced pasta and tuna-in-a-pouch.
“At first something like tuna and pasta sounds so gross but when you start adding spices, it can be surprisingly tasty,” Thota said.
Thota said the name represents finding something special in something that might not seem so. Their favorite dinner meal and the people they met were better than first appearance.
“With a lot of people we make these presumptions based on the things we hear or what we assume and where they’re from which doesn’t give us a chance to hear their story,” Wickes said.
Wickes and Thota have released eight free podcasts on iTunes from their trip and plan on releasing three more. The episodes come out Fridays.
Somewhere along the way, Wickes and Thota met a man with a dog in a coffee shop. The man was in charge of assigning grants from IBM to researchers.
“This guy is living a life that I want to live when I’m 50 or around his age,” Thota said.
The man was one of 43 people Wickes and Thota interviewed and one of 40 included in the podcast.
During the day, the pair drove and stopped along the way for food and sightseeing. They found their sources anywhere — from a Subway restaurant to University of Pennsylvania’s campus.
At night, they slept in a tent in people’s backyards, on farms or in campsites. One time, they set up their tent at Joshua Tree National Park on a campsite infested by spiders.
The techies enjoyed the outdoors and the people they met during their trip. Thota said he’s never done something like this before.
“It’s made me a lot more people-oriented in terms of how I want my impact on technology to be,” Thota said. “The podcast itself, having a platform for people to share their stories, that’s technology.”
