After 3.5 Years With Odyssey, It Is My Time To Say Goodbye
It has been a good ride, but now it's time to move on.
When I was a freshman in college, one of my friends, Emily, had asked me if I would be interested in writing for a group called "Odyssey." I wasn't entirely sure what the group was, but I was somewhat interested, so I decided to give it a shot.
After a couple of months of writing, Emily (who was actually in charge of the community) asked me to be an editor for the group since a positioned opened up. I agreed.
A few more months pass, and everything is great! Emily and I were keeping the community in check and we were doing really well. As my freshman year started coming to an end, Emily informed me that she would be transferring to a new school in the fall. She asked me to run the community and take over her position. Again, I agreed.
I stayed as the EIC for a while and got my roommate to join as well. She became one of the editors for the community, and later the president.
For personal reasons, I gave up my EIC position to one of the star individuals in the community, and she has knocked it out of the park. The community has been thriving since, and I couldn't be more proud of how far the two of them have come.
Since being with Odyssey, I have met tons of people from other universities and people in New York at headquarters who have taught me everything I know. I have written 118 articles and have over 139,000 page views. When I first started writing, I had no idea I would be able to connect with and write about so many other things people were experiencing.
Odyssey provided me with a platform to let myself write freely. I had the ability to write about literally anything I wanted to write about. I wrote about some topics that were really personal and close to me, and some other ones were just free writing and were funny. Regardless of what I was writing, I always looked forward to seeing what people had to say about my work whether it was positive or negative; I just enjoyed the feedback.
As graduation is quickly approaching, I decided I've had a good run with Odyssey and now it is my turn to move on and focus on something else.
Thank you, Odyssey, for giving me an outlet to freely express myself. Thank you for helping me form new friendships and relationships with people I wouldn't have otherwise met. Thank you for helping me improve my writing skills, and for allowing me to work with some really great people along the way.
Thank you for everything.
To The Rude People In The Odyssey Comment Section
There's no space here for all of your negativity.
If you follow Odyssey on Facebook, or any social platform really, you've probably seen them. The people who only have negative things to say. They pick apart the articles shared. They call the authors named. They criticize Odyssey. But why is this necessary?
Didn't your mamas ever teach you 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'?
I've experienced the rude comments firsthand. Followers tore apart my words, simply because they had a different opinion. Of course, I still sleep nice and sound every night knowing you despise my words, but I just simply don't understand why there is a need for the things some of you say.
Maybe you disagree with what is posted, but that doesn't mean you have to be negative Nellies.
Your negativity doesn't affect us, but it's certainly not needed either. If you don't like what you see, all you have to do is keep scrolling. Or if it bothers you that much, don't read that specific article. It's a very simple solution, my friend.
One of the biggest problems in the world today is that too many people let small things offend them. It is okay for someone to have an opinion that is different from yours. It is okay for someone to voice those opinions. We all have the right to do that, but we can't hate each other or start arguments simply because of a difference of opinion. That's not going to get any of us anywhere.
Some of Odyssey's writers use their voice here, express their feelings, or really just say whatever they feel they need to say. Some people use that voice to talk about sports, movies, TV, technology, politics, the list could go on.
But it's just kind of rude to criticize someone and take away their voice, just for expressing their thoughts.
So, to the negative Nelly in the comment section, remember the golden rule: say something nice or don't have anything at all.
And you, Odyssey writers: keep doing you, rockstar. Like Taylor Swift once said, haters gonna hate...shake it off!!!