If someone a year or two ago were to come up to me and tell me that I would end up writing as a hobby in college, I would have thought they were joking. In my eyes growing up, writing was a serious activity that was done mainly by academics: professors, researchers, graduate students, that sort of thing. I was 18, and in my senior year of high school at the time. I knew students like myself wrote papers too of course, but they carried less weight for obvious reasons. We simply didn’t have the expertise or knowledge to back our work and give it the impact it would have had if it been written by a scholar. In addition, the topics on which we wrote said papers were chosen for us, as part of an assignment or something to be submitted for a grade. Without generalizing too much, I think it’s fair to say that the majority of these kinds of papers lack the emotional depth and passion to be interesting reads. Let's be honest here: they were made purely for a good grade.

Writing without this restraint is a completely different story. Without the pressure of a grade, it feels as though a great weight has been lifted. Instead of being a tiresome and mundane task, writing for me became an enjoyable creative exercise. It allows me to unshackle my mind and free my thoughts, to ponder and fully explore ideas. Nowadays, I’m finally starting to see writing for what it truly is: an art form. Like a painter with his brush or a sculptor with his knife, words are my tools and the paper is my canvas. Every pen stroke (or keystroke on a keyboard, in this day and age) is completely under my control, and that in itself is incredibly empowering. Maybe you’ve got a talent for fiction, with a boundless imagination for fantastic beasts and the strange worlds they inhabit. Not your thing? Maybe you’re a memoir kind of author, recounting experiences from your past that readers can relate to and learn from. There are countless disciplines of writing to try and experiment with, and you are by no means limited to just one. What you write about, how you write it, what words you choose to use: it’s all up to you. There are no wrong answers. Let your voice and style as a writer shape your creations, and be proud of them. Experiment, learn, and find your style; no two writers are exactly alike.

If I could somehow go back in time and encourage the younger me to pick this up earlier, I certainly would. I would have learned and grown so much. Unfortunately I can’t do that, but maybe this will encourage someone

reading this to give writing a try. Real writing, not writing-a-paper-for-my-class kind of writing. I think you’ll find it surprisingly enjoyable.