In an environment as eclectic as Vassar College, many of us have experienced the natural flicker of intrigue when encountering someone with a unique personal ethos. While we may typically think little of it before moving on, the podcast “Answering Machine” unpacks this curiosity and transforms it into a profound dialogue. Hosted and produced by seniors Bridgette Nally and AJ Seedansingh, “Answering Machine” is an interview-based podcast exploring diverse beliefs, ideas and lifestyles of both the Vassar community and soon beyond, aimed to educate listeners and broaden their perspectives.
“Answering Machine” can be traced back to Fall 2022, when Nally and Seedansingh first arrived at Vassar. Having bonded over breakfast during orientation, Nally and Seedansingh immediately began brainstorming creative ways to capture their years in college. “I guess there’s just been a constant urge in our friendship… for us to create together,” Nally said.
Nally and Seedansingh decided to bring their ideas to fruition the summer before their senior year. After Nally spent the summer interning at a radio station in Poughkeepsie, she and Seedansingh decided to use their podcast as a way to continue telling stories and engaging with the Vassar community. “We know so many cool people, and we are constantly coming across so many cool ideas and things that we’ve never thought about before, or are making us rethink things, assumptions that we had for a long time,” Nally said. Nally and Seedansingh have begun producing “Answering Machine” as an independent study project advised by Associate Professor and Chair of Music Justin Patch.
After considering multiple potential titles, Nally and Seedansingh landed on “Answering Machine,” inspired by the game of telephone. “You’re going down a line, and what the original message is changes because of interpretation,” Seedansingh explained. “When you interpret something, each person has their own idea of what it is.”
When planning episodes, Nally and Seedansingh find themselves directly inspired by the people they have encountered, from classmates they have known for years or people they simply walk by every day. Seedansingh said, “I feel like the ideas do come with the people, and questions that we have for people and what they do.”
The first episode of “Answering Machine” features Kwabena Adae ’26 and was released in November 2025. In it, Adae discusses antispeciesism, or the rejection of differential treatment towards different species. Adae emphasizes the importance of decentering the human experience in interactions with other species and demonstrates how antispeciesist thinking can be applied when evaluating cultural and economic frameworks. Adae reflects in the episode, “In thinking about things like deep-sea mining… how can you re-orient people’s perspectives so that they can empathize with that which is not known, over that which is known?”
The second episode, published in March, is a larger exploration of Luddism. Nally and Seedansingh interview Professor of History Lydia Murdoch, as well as Audrey Miller ’27 and George Truax ’27, and discuss the history and recent reclamation of Luddism. “It’s not reactionary or looking backward,” Truax explains in the episode. “It’s trying to create a more positive and critically developed future.”
Through the process of conducting interviews, Nally and Seedansingh have been able to feel a greater sense of connection with their guests, something which they hope is captured in the final product. “I hope, given the nature of the questions we’re asking, that there has been connection across the table and across the microphones,” Nally said. “The feeling I have leaving the interview room of connection with the person that we’ve just had the opportunity to speak with, and feeling so excited about having my mind opened… and then being enlightened with all of these new things and new ideas—that amalgamation of feelings is what I hope, on some level, the listener leaves with.”
In addition to planning episodes and interviewing, Nally and Seedansingh edit and arrange the raw audio into its final product. Seedansingh, who is also co-president of the Vassar Night Owls, compared the process of editing to a rehearsal, where sounds are experimented with and layered. [Disclaimer: the author of this article serves as music director of the Night Owls.] “You’re listening to the audio, you cut down… just to make it sound more smooth,” Seedansingh said. “Once it’s that… you get to mix things however you want. You just kind of find whatever sits right in your ear.”
While editing, Nally and Seedansingh are focused on making episodes accessible for audiences that may be unfamiliar with the topics of the episodes. “You want to make it something that you enjoy listening to that’s exciting to be immersed in,” Nally explained. The exposition and dialogue of the episodes are interspersed with background music and phone-themed sound effects as a way to engage audiences and connect to the podcast’s larger theme.
Throughout the entire process, Nally and Seedansingh have found the insight they gained into new perspectives of life to be invaluable. Interviewing guests has allowed them to not only reflect but find unique intersections of beliefs. “There are just times when there’s such clear connections,” Seedansingh said. “Within an episode, if we’re interviewing two people… they bridge the gap between them and their experiences themselves. Or even when it bridges between episodes, that’s happened a lot.” With “Answering Machine,” Nally and Seedansingh hope to further inspire curiosity and exploration. Nally explained, “It’s not a hard message of what a listener should believe, but a constant invitation to rethink.”
Their next episode, featuring Jolyn Prescott ’27 and Niccolo Porcello ’16, discusses music and is anticipated to be released in mid-April. In the meantime, you can listen to “Answering Machine” on Spotify and keep up with @answeringmachinepodcast on Instagram for updates.