The first few weeks of school have been very eventful! Classes have started, I’ve met professors, made new friends, and been working on a whole new semester’s worth of articles for Odyssey. This opportunity to meet new friends has also given me the opportunity to spread the word about the many amazing things that Odyssey writers are doing campus! Many people have found it interesting, and I’ve met some people that sounded nervous about joining a team of people that write every week and share their work online. I’ll admit that I was nervous about the idea when I applied to be part of our university’s Odyssey team, but I haven’t regretted it for a single second.

To all of you that are wary of applying to your local Odyssey team – you shouldn’t be nervous! None of us are professional writers Odyssey isn’t just a group of people that write and share their work every week like some people think. We are so much more than that! Odyssey is a group of people that share their ideas with each other, communicate, grow, and form our own close-knit group. We’re actually more like a family than anything!

You don’t have to be an English major or anything like that to be on our team! We have people on our team with a wide variety of majors, and we all mesh well together! Everyone has something that interests them or that they’re passionate about! Let this be your opportunity to share that passion with the rest of the world!

Another wonderful thing about Odyssey is that you don’t have someone telling you what to write about. You get to write about anything that you want as long as it’s appropriate! Do you want to write an open letter to your best friend for the whole world to read? You can do it! What about writing an article about your university or the things that you dread during finals week? You can write those, too! If you get stuck, your team is there for you to bounce ideas around with! You can also have guest authors each week if you choose to do so! Guest authors can be a great way for you to give others an opportunity to share their ideas on your profile that may not have access to another Odyssey community.

Odyssey is your chance to be part of something more than classes on campus! This is your chance to make your voice heard and to share your ideas with others. You have nothing to lose by joining your local Odyssey community! You could be the voice that someone you’ve never even met identifies with. You could make a difference in your community simply by writing. You could bring someone joy and smile with your articles. For those of you that have never heard of Odyssey or have considered it but you’re still not sure, I encourage you to simply try it. All you have to do is go forth, be brave and write.