The Safe Place Her Campus Gave Me

I want to start by saying the club Her Campus at Colorado State has the most genuine, positive people writing every week. I constantly feel so lucky to be a part of this. Her Campus at Colorado State gave me a reason to write.

    Since freshman year of high school, writing was always a part of who I was. I’d rather write a 15-page paper over taking an exam anytime, any day. There’s something about writing that constantly felt and continues to feel so right for me. Maybe it was that you could be right in a thousand ways with writing. For example, in a college composition class, you can express what the right answer is in so many more ways than math classes where one answer is the only answer.  

    I found my appreciation for creative writing my senior year of high school. I took a creative writing class and had the absolute worst teacher possible. I loved the writing I was doing in that specific class. It didn’t matter how good or bad the teacher was at this point. There was no way I would let one person take away the excitement I had when writing. I focused on what I was putting down on paper rather than the bad teaching surrounding the classroom.

    When I tell you, I loved writing with a passion at this point, I mean so much so that I wanted to head to college for journalism. I found out pretty fast while attending college at Arizona State that creative writing and journalism are not exactly the same thing. I didn’t want to report on news or sports. I wanted to talk about the important things I grasp and recognize on a daily basis. What major is that?

    I truly struggled my freshman year of college trying to find where all this passion would play out in a career for me. It took awhile but towards the end of my time at Arizona State, I realized everything I was doing wrong. I was focusing too hard on how writing would fit into my life throughout my future. I took a step back and thought about what it would feel like to actually write every single day for my career. It really hit me at this moment that putting something I love doing that much into a career would completely ruin it. This is my outlet. My outlet from school, work, drama, etc. This is how I express myself without feeling guilty or ashamed. I can’t put this into a career and I’m okay with that.

    When I came to Colorado State, I did find a major that fit me perfectly. This major turned out to be social work, but I still wasn’t content. I found myself writing when I needed to share my thoughts or feelings. This writing was not being shared anywhere or expressed to others in any sort of way. As I was writing in my notebook one day after class, I came to the conclusion that what I was writing could help so many other people if I could somehow share it. Then, Her Campus came along.

    I found Her Campus at Colorado State one day while I was on a deep search to find a writing club. The description posted was everything I needed. A free place to share whatever you felt needed to be shared. PERFECT.

    I’ve been writing for Her Campus since August 2018, and everything about it is wonderful. The people, the writing, the safe place. I finally found where my writing can be my writing. This club is about sharing who you are, and no one here would change that.

    Her Campus at Colorado State, thank you.

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