As a 10-year-old, I would use all of the Microsoft Word features to make my own newspaper. I wrote about my cousins, my siblings, and my pets. As a kid, I would play pretend by myself in my bedroom, setting up my stuffed animals and interviewing them. I loved telling stories. Over a decade has passed since my creation of “Drue’s Gazette”, and my love for sharing stories still grows.

I joined my Odyssey team over the summer of 2016. After spending six months pitching article ideas to another content platform, only to be continuously ignored and rejected, it was time to explore other options. I spent an entire day sending article pitches and portfolios to a huge variety of content platforms and eventually found myself on Odyssey’s application page. I saw Odyssey articles on my Facebook feed almost every day and had certainly read and shared them myself. I had never given much thought to who the creators were or if I should be part of the community. I took a chance and now, nearly four months later, I’m part of the editing team in my Odyssey community.

I can fairly say that Odyssey was the right choice for me. Here are some reasons why it's probably the right choice for you, too!

• Your editors are your peers!

Odyssey editing teams are constructed in a unique way; instead of being composed entirely of impersonal, paid employees in a far-away city, most of the editing team comes from the school you go to! Odyssey creators and editors are walking by you on campus everyday. That means that your stories will be given some extra TLC by your peers. (It also means that by being a creator, you’ll get a chance to make a lot of cool, new friends!)

• You write about what you care about.

While Odyssey teams do love to see high share counts and articles with a lot of likes, popularity is not the most important thing. The company wants to see young people thrive and use their voice to talk about what is meaningful to them.

• You will be given nearly unlimited resources

Odyssey has done an excellent job of compiling tips and tricks to inspire their creators. They have resources for beating writer’s block, creating headlines, finding new audiences, and more! The editing team and fellow creators in your community will always be there to help you out if you’re feeling stuck or uninspired.

• You will be listened to.

I mean this in two ways. First, Odyssey gives you the chance to “make your voice heard” through an awesome, user-friendly platform that lets you write about whatever you want. Secondly, you will get the chance to fill out surveys and talk to editors in the home office about what you want to get out of the experience. They take your responses seriously and are always adapting to fit the wants and needs of the creators.

• You will never be asked to filter yourself.

In the mission statement on Odyssey’s About Page, it says that Odyssey wants to share “new, honest, and meaningful content”. There are no robotically generated topics that you’re required to write about. There are no restrictions on your voice. You are wholly invited to use the platform to express your opinions.

This is why after four months, I’m still a happy and active creator here in my community. I love that on the same platform, I can write about my drum-playing boyfriend, or being vegetarian, or sexual violence on college campuses. I love that I can relate to other students who are also pro-choice while still getting to see a pick-me-up from someone who knew that we all just needed some cute puppies to get us through the week.

Thank you, Odyssey, for allowing me to fulfill my childhood dream of sharing stories, while I’m still just a busy college kid who drinks too much coffee and binge watches Netflix instead of writing papers for my Sociology class. The time commitment is a small price to pay for so many opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have. The resources, friends, and platform I have because of you are things I can no longer picture my life without.