This article is the 53rd I've written, meaning I've been writing for Odyssey every week for the past year. Before I wrote for Odyssey, I had very little writing experience. I published a few bits online for my internships but hadn't had the freedom to write about anything I wanted. While I joined Odyssey, I also joined a few other common news sites and wrote articles for them. However, Odyssey is the one that has stuck through. I've never missed a deadline, and I get to write about whatever I want every single week, and it'll be published online.

Writers aren't paid, but that doesn't make it come with fewer benefits.

For one, writing for Odyssey taught me concrete PR and communications skills. We can see the statistics of which articles got which views, and we can see the numbers go up if we market the article successfully. Moreover, the weekly deadline keeps our minds awake for any topic that could be worth writing about. None of the other news sites I wrote for setting these deadlines, and that's partially the reason why only Odyssey stuck around. Odyssey was also the only news site that didn't restrict what topics we can write about - we write about whatever we want, without having to run the topic by anyone, every week.

I committed myself and saw results.

Though there are admittedly a lot of "filler" articles with content no one is too interested in, every once in a while, an interesting topic comes up that begs to be written about.

Odyssey is a huge news site, with a recognizable name and high viewer counts. That means that we can use the name to our advantage. For one, it looks great on my resume! Lots of big events also search for media representatives, so you can get discounted or free passes to events.

I got to go to Lollapalooza for free this summer!

- just by mentioning that I write for Odyssey and promising a couple of articles. Moreover, as an entrepreneur, Odyssey can be a great way to spread the news of different upcoming businesses. Companies are constantly looking for PR channels, and Odyssey is one of them.

Odyssey is easy to get into as a writer. Check if your college campus has a chapter, and apply as a writer. Lots of people I know had little to none writing experience when they first began with Odyssey. It's not important that you have incredible writing skills - what's important is that you have substantial content to contribute. Odyssey is built on a crowdsourced model, meaning it's powered by thousands of volunteer writers.

You just might find your new community here. If you'd like to apply, go here!

Happy writing!