When you live in Las Vegas, it’s a story you hear time and time again:
“There’s no culture!”
“There is no one else here who is into the same things as me”
“No one in Las Vegas cares about arts/writing/philosophy/music/history/fill-in-the-blank-with-your-own”
After living here my whole life and then attending college at UNLV, I had gotten to a point where I had given up on trying to make new friends or find likeminded people on campus. I wrote my college experience off as a bad time. Even when I had something good going on in my life, it wasn’t the same without friends or a community to share it with. I love writing, I love the arts, I love culture and politics and fashion and music. But it all seemed like something I did for myself, alone in my bedroom, without any possibility for recognition.
That’s when I found Odyssey at UNLV.
Our community of writers at UNLV is so unique, even across the Odyssey company. UNLV is a commuter school, and its students often have full-time jobs and live across town. After your first few weeks of freshman year, it can easily seem like there are no ways to get involved or like you’ll never be able to make friends with anyone. Clubs on campus might require too much time for a busy student, and if you do join Greek life, it might be hard for you to find time for traditional in-person extracurriculars.
But if you love writing, if you have stories you want to tell, if you want to be a part of a community of people who are also busy and smart and interesting and passionate, there’s a place for you at Odyssey.
I’ve been the Editor-in-Chief of our community for almost four months, and in that time I’ve learned so much from my kick-a** creators. We’ve got guys who are into philosophy, new freshman who are political junkies, girls with an incredible amount of passion and commitment to their sororities, and writers who have never even considered going Greek. We’ve got marketing and journalism majors, but we’ve also got education majors, philosophy majors, political science majors, film majors, and engineering majors. Our little team is growing rapidly, writing a ridiculous variety of content, and steadily gaining more and more recognition.
In the time that I’ve been EIC, our team has almost doubled in size and our page views have tripled. That’s because we’ve got some of the most passionate people at UNLV on our team! I’m honored to know them and to be able to read their work every week.
So to all of my team’s creators: thank you for being some of the best that Odyssey has to offer. Thanks for replying to my messages and turning in your articles on time and putting so much time and effort into finding exactly the right gifs. More than anything, thank you for feeling free to express your ideas and tell your stories. Thank you for being brave enough to be a part of Odyssey.
