The channel of Christopher Penn, host of the Financial Aid Podcast. Visit www.FinancialAidPodcast.com on the Web for much, much more.

In addition to being your host every weekday morning on the show, I'm also the Chief Technology Officer of the Student Loan Network and its parent company, the Edvisors Network. Prior to joining the Student Loan Network in 2003, I worked at a regional credit union data processor, which sounds far more impressive than it actually was, and did technical consulting for legal and accounting firms for a few years prior to that.

The thing I love the most about podcasting and what I do at the Student Loan Network is that it really allows me to express myself in new, creative ways. For me, financial aid and the student loan industry is almost a kind of passion. So much of modern American society revolves around money in one way or another, and the more I learn about it, the more I see, the more I understand. When you understand money and its power, you can look at a newspaper headline and instinctively get a sense for what's really going on, for the discussions in the back rooms, the deals being made, and the real story behind the story. Want to understand why Washington DC does what it does? Money. Money, economics, all that stuff is so important, so vital to understand, and it's what really drives me to crank out a podcast every single day. Each day, another piece gets added to the puzzle, and I know a little bit more about how to make the world work for me - and for my listeners.

Let's be clear: I love feedback from my listeners! Call in, write in, use the comments on this site, the voice message system - but please tell me what's on your mind, what you love, what you want more of!