27 weeks, and 27 Odyssey articles later, I can't tell what kind of impact my articles have had on my readers. In all honestly, I haven't thought much about teaching any kinds of life lessons or delivering anything more than a laugh and a fresh perspective to my audience. But without a doubt, I can tell you how much I've learned about my passions, my ideas and my goals from writing an article of my choice every week.

First and foremost, I've learned that writing will always be a part of my life. In high school, I took advanced classes in the humanities and developed a love of self-expression in the form of words. As a result, my extracurriculars became centered around this passion: head editor for the school newspaper, writer for Key Club newsletters, intern for an economic-journalism company, and finally, a content creator for Odyssey. But I always knew that I would use my college education to pursue my love for the sciences, a broad category of education that never fails to spark curiosity and allow me to think in a logical and analytical way. Would pursuing this demanding workload mean abandoning my love for writing?

For a while, I believed it would. But the thing about writing, something that English teachers have been telling me all my life but that I've just recently realized myself, is that it is so easy to incorporate into whatever career path you choose. My writing could be polished and published in an autobiography or be a few sentences on an insta caption, directed at a wide audience or in a personal letter to a close friend, reflections of my deepest insecurities or judgments about the whole universe. No matter its form, writing is an addicting form of self-expression that clears my mind and my soul, making me calmer and more centered. I guarantee I will never want to, or be able to, give it up.

But publishing my writing hasn't come without its fair share of discomfort. Sharing writing on Facebook for all of my acquaintances, friends, and family members to read requires the ability to face criticism, a skill I've always struggled with but have recently been working on. In order to accept people's negative or constructive comments, I first needed to learn to take myself a lot less seriously. I am not a professional writer by any means: I am a college student trying to get an article in every week while studying for exams and training for my sport. Just because I enjoy writing doesn't mean I don't make grammatical errors or have controversial beliefs that my friends and family might think are fundamentally wrong. Accepting criticism does not require agreeing with it, but there is always something to learn from other people's opinions. Because of the comments I get on a weekly basis, I have changed topics, style, and even ideals because I considered another's perspective and decided it would improve my writing. There is no such thing as perfect writing, but there are always infinitely many ways to improve.

The last and most important universal truth I've learned in the past few months? That GIFs make every article a million times better.