While you randomly scroll through your feed on Facebook you probably encounter a plethora of posts about Odyssey. If you have ever clicked on one of these posts (which obviously you have if you are reading this) you probably even know that Odyssey is a student fueled media outlet. I honestly am of the opinion that it is an amazing idea--anyone can get their ideas out there as long as they are willing to put in the time to produce an article every week. But like anything else, there is also a less glamorous side that you might not be aware of if you are not involved in the group.
Let's take a peek behind the curtain. The major fault that I have found in the site’s organization is that if you don't have a big social media presence your articles are not going to be seen by that many people. This is something I struggle with because the bulk of my social media use is posting the links to my articles and occasionally checking to see what my grandmother has posted on my wall. Although we refer to ourselves as a “team” and we have a GroupMe for the contributors it ends up mostly being our editor reminding us of things rather than a lot of interaction between the writers. This, I will admit is only the culture of UB’s team and I cannot speak for other schools, but it's something that a lot of us within the community seem to want to improve on.
Writing for Odyssey is a huge responsibility. There is no denying that. I love to write, and I think that most of the writers must because we all chose to be here creating content, but that doesn't mean that there aren't weeks where you have zero ideas for articles and you really don't have to time to produce quality content anyway. Those weeks I tend to write “Listicles” because they are a lot easier, in my opinion to get through quickly.
I have really come to love writing for Odyssey. There have been articles I posted which were honestly difficult for me to share with everyone I know. Those weeks really helped me to grow and be more comfortable with sharing in general. When you post an article everyone can see it. That is terrifying to me, but then someone will like my post or share the article and suddenly I gain a lot more motivation to keep going.
Writing for Odyssey has also given me an outlet to express myself. I take a rigorous course load. It is quite taxing at times and that is exactly why I love having another way to express myself. I have always loved writing so the idea of getting to do it publicly every week was something that initially drew me into the organization. Having an article due every week has helped me a lot with my time management too; having a deadline means you have to learn to build your schedule in a way that accommodates it which is a skill that I have found incredibly difficult in the past. I am extremely happy to have been given the opportunity to write for this organization and I wouldn't trade it for anything.
