Hello, fellow humans!

I’m Zack North one of the newest Northern State University Odyssey writers. I’m extremely excited to start this journey with you all and can’t wait to see what comes out of this adventure.

Let's start off with the basics. I’m a junior at Northern State University majoring in Political Science, minoring in History, and a Certificate in Public History. I’ve always had a love for history and social sciences so it made sense to go into these fields of study. On top of that, the Public History Certificate is a part of my degree that will be of great help after my bachelor’s program and into grad school.

Yes, I did say grad school. I plan on going on with my education and pursuing a master’s degree in Library and Information Science with specializations in archives or law librarianship. Libraries have always been a part of my life in some way. During my childhood, I did the summer reading programs and other events. That spark dwindled during high school, until recently. My college career started out with a job at the library. I instantly fell in love with the field, work environment, and general idea of being surrounded by and working with books or archival items. Since then, the idea of being a librarian has been on my mind and something that I crave to pursue.

Obviously, I’m much more than just a college career. I have hobbies, likes, dislikes, and quirks. Let’s start with hobbies. I’m a gamer at heart. Board games, video games, and card games all have a particular spot in my heart. I grew up playing video games with my mother and father. It was something that brought our crazy, hectic family together for a couple of races, challenges and pleasant evenings. Board and card games have been a more recent venture for me.

It may sound cliché, but reading is another one of my favorite activities. As an introvert, I often have afternoons where being around people is just not an option. This is usually when I turn to reading to fill my time and recharge the social batteries. I’m not sure it’s a hobby, but Netflix in my downtime is another hobby of mine. With the amount of reading I have to do for classes, sitting down to read a few more pages is just not an option. This is where TV series on Netflix come in to save the day.

I have a great love for animals. Out of all the possible animals in the world, I would have to choose cats as my absolute favorites. I’m going to cite my two cats and all of the cat videos on the internet as the reason for that love. I also love food. Food is one of my favorite things about each day. The fact that I can enjoy something through ingesting it is remarkable to me. There are just so many tasty foods, it's sad that I will never get to try them all. Goldfish crackers are one of my favorite little snack foods. How could you not love them? They are just so adorable and cute and tasty too! I’m also an avid drinker of tea and coffee. I prefer loose leaf tea; but, tea is tea, and I will drink it. Coffee is one of those things that I could never really figure out what I truly like in flavor. For now, I will stick to ordering drinks at coffee shops. Lastly, I love snow. Snow just feels so pure and clean. For me, it symbolizes the beginning of renewal and growth. Plus, it’s just a really amazing substance to throw at people.

I'm primarily going to be writing articles about education and gaming. My education articles will focus on tips and tricks for students. The gaming articles will cover a wide range of topics with occasional reviews on recent games. Occasionally, I won't write articles on these topics and do something a little more personal.