When my Critical Thinking and Writing professor tasked me with the assignment of converting my 2200 word essay into an 800 word blog post, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. But let me tell you… it wasn’t as simple as it originally seemed.

Source: Tenor

Entering the blogging world was exciting but presented a daunting task. Publishing my thoughts for anyone in the world to see was nerve-wracking. I had no idea that my first english class in college would open up a whole new world of literacy for me. This new, untraditional way of sharing my writing has been both challenging and yet, surprisingly rewarding.

I wanted my first blog post to be something that many of my peers could relate to, and what better subject for that than college? My goal was to turn my seven page synthesis essay into something that many of you would actually be interested in reading (because who wants to read seven pages).

After rereading the 2200 words I wrote about the reasons why many lower class students do not get the opportunity to go to college, a question came to me. Higher education has become such an integral part of our society, but are we actually wasting our time, not to mention our money, on these 4+ years in college?

I am sure on those late nights at 4am when you are still writing that endless paper on some topic you don’t even care about, you ask yourself “Is this even worth it?”. I know I have.

Source: Keeping Up With The Kardashians

One of the main arguments of my essay was about the inequality of opportunity for education that lower class individuals are forced to contend with. I know that not everyone reading this blog can relate to being in the lower class, so I wanted to make this topic more relatable. In order to make the post more relatable, I set out to highlight the more general questions that anyone might ask themselves when determining if college is the right choice. I also decided to structure the blog post in such a way that certain questions were bolded and certain quotes emphasized by another color. I made these stylistic changes in order to engage the reader more directly. The question was posed specifically to the reader rather than being merely a hypothetical.

I wrote this post because I wanted to encourage others who might be struggling to afford a four-year university to take advantage of possible alternative paths and not be ashamed that they might not be at a prestigious university. However, in order to not neglect or fail to acknowledge the ones who are fortunate enough to afford to attend a four-year university, I wanted introduce the notion of judgement as to open their eyes to these prejudgements we so carelessly place upon so many students.

This assignment challenged me to think about my writing from a different perspective. Words that were once a part of a formal, academic essay, have now been transformed into words that can affect the everyday person and possibly even help to make a difference in someone’s life.

I am excited to see where this new blogging journey will take me and I am looking forward to posting more on topics that you all can hopefully relate to!

Source: Mixcloud