I really wish I would have started journaling or better yet, blogging while I was at University. There’s so much to be gained from it from a personal, academic and career perspective. If only I had known!
Personal Perspective
From a personal perspective, I have found putting pen to paper (or keystroke to Word document) to be incredibly helpful. It’s helped me organize my thoughts in a way that simply thinking about them does not. It’s brought structure to my thinking and new insights to my challenges, concerns, and decisions.
If I could turn back time, I would blog before or while at University. The proof is in the pudding, so to speak. I read a lot of blog articles and the articles written by young bloggers are so insightful and far beyond where I was at at that age. Now, of course, that can be attributed to many things, but I can’t help but think that that is attributable at least in part to their ability to mastering communication through the written word.
Academic Perspective
I wholeheartedly know that blogging has made me a better writer. Through editors giving me tips and also just simply blogging at a steady pace, I have learned so much from them and myself about writing a top notch article. Ones that will entice my readers to want to read more. Or articles that will pull at their heartstrings and leave them wanting more.
If I could give my younger self one piece of advice it would be to write, write, write! I know that my grades in my University English classes would have been much better and come with much more ease. In addition, it would have been something that I could have shared in University and gotten additional feedback from my professors on to gain additional writing strategies and also to show that that I am serious about writing. I really think it would have given me a step above my colleagues to blog, or at least journal during University.
Career Perspective
Similar to the academic perspective, I think that journaling or blogging can really help in one’s career. Blogging causes you to look at your words carefully and ensure that they really mean what you intend them to mean. This is so important in the workplace. You never want to give a bad impression, let alone one simply through a poorly written communication.
Communication is key in the workplace. Whether written or verbal, you want to make sure that your message is clear. And blogging, for me, has done just that. It’s made my message cleaner and crisper and helped me avoid the missteps of an inadvertent message in an email.
Blogging is not be something that I bring up at work, as it does not have direct relevance to my job. However, I have seen it directly open some doors for people. Being a blogger often means that you have a great grip on creating enticing twitter messages or other social media messages. There are plenty of jobs in this area. Blogging just may be your stepping stone into one of these careers.
What Does Blogging Mean for You?
What benefits do you see from blogging? How has it helped you in your life? Have you found an academic benefit? Career benefit?
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