What I've Learned After One Year of Odyssey

Mostly, I'm surprised I kept it up for this long.

Originally published on March 9, 2017

I’ve been writing for Odyssey for about a year now. I never thought I would have kept it up for this long. I figured I would have run out of things to say a long time ago. And the truth is, I still have some article ideas waiting that I wrote down when I first started out. I have a lot to say, and I’m glad I have a place where I can say it.

Odyssey has been a very positive experience for me. It has taught me that I can motivate myself to get something done, despite not being attached to a class grade. I have learned how to write for this subgenre of the Internet, for my peers in colleges everywhere. I have found a certain voice, one that is slightly more punctuated than my usual ramblings. I have had chances to do research and put together a story, like a paper for class.

I am considering writing in the future, and this has been a good way for me to get used to writing consistently. I have not skipped a week, even in the middle of break or in the summer when I was worried I would have nothing to say. I either looked on my ideas list or did a little research and came up with something. It may have been short and not my favorite piece, but I tried to be proud of everything I put up. It is my work, attached to my name and my face. When future employers Google my name, these articles will come up. I am putting myself out there, in a permanent way. This is practice for the future: writing something on a deadline, augmented by research and hyperlinks with my name and picture attached to it.

There are things I need to get better at. One thing is definitely headlines. Writing a catchy headline is not one of my strong suits. But the more I write, the more I read, the more I understand the nuances of what catches attention on the Internet.

I’m actually more worried about coming up with things for the year ahead. What can I write that I haven’t written about yet? What else is there that someone like me can say? I have the ideas I wrote down a year ago, but what happens when I use all those and can’t justify myself to write another “Top 10 List Of Things To Do Over Spring Break” article. I have a goal to write something that becomes viral, not just in my community, but around the website and the demographic of college students on social media as a whole. That probably won’t happen, but it would be nice if it did.

I am more proud of myself than anything. I have stuck with it for this long and I will continue to stick with it for as long as I can, hopefully as long as I am a student. Writing for Odyssey has been one of the greatest accidental discoveries of my college career.