5 Reasons Why College Students Should Start Their Own Blogs

By  Melissa Burns

These days it seems that virtually everybody has a blog: some do it for fun, others to occupy free time, still others to make money. It, however, doesn’t seem to be a very popular pastime among students – while they have better reasons for blogging than many others. Why? Let’s find out.

1.      Blog Equals Portfolio

Before we start talking about fulfillment and finding like-minded people we would like to mention that students have a very down-to-earth and practical use for blogging – because a blog can easily be turned into a portfolio.

Depending on your future career, you may concentrate on different areas of creativity, but still – don’t waste an opportunity to post your articles, graphic designs, essays, photos, animations, 3D models – whatever you create. When the time comes for you to look for a job, you will include links to your blog and will easily show your potential employer that you have been working in the field for a long time, went a long way and are not going to stop. A negligible payment for web hosting is more than a reasonable price for such an opportunity.

2.      Blog Means Positive Digital Footprint

What does a potential employer do when he receives your resume (provided he doesn’t relocate it directly to the dustbin)? He Googles your name and checks the contexts in which it appears.

And it is up to you to, firstly, make it appear in search results, and secondly – appear in contexts pertaining to your field of activity. If your blog is a top result for your name, you’ve nailed it.

3.      Making Money

Frankly speaking, as a student you shouldn’t hope to considerably improve your financial situation by blogging. There are not that many people who earn a lot of money by blogging, and those who do don’t work on their blogs in their free time. Look at it this way: if your blog brings you some money, good. If it doesn’t – it shouldn’t be your goal. Your goal should be doing things you like.

4.      Build up Your Experience

In case you don’t dedicate your blog solely to posting the pictures of your cat, it is an excellent medium of accumulating knowledge and experience in your chosen field of activity. By making something public, you simultaneously test out your new ideas and methods, and comments left by visitors can give you an insight into the topic that is completely different from the way you are used to perceive it. By communicating with the people reading your blog you will be able to get acquainted with like-minded individuals or, on the contrary, learn how to debate and protect your point of view. Depending on the industry you are going to work in, it may prove to be an invaluable contribution to your expertise.

5.      Get in Touch with the Experts in Your Field

People who have already achieved something in your chosen field of work may seem to be high and unreachable, but we live in the age of the Internet, and the Internet largely eliminates the boundaries between people. You will be amazed how many successful people are ready to contact a humble blogger to say thank you for mentioning them in an article – which is an excellent way to start an acquaintance that may do you a world of good later on.

As you may see, starting your own blog has many more uses than to be a playground where you speak about your feelings and share cute pictures. It has many practical uses – and as a student you should not neglect them.

Melissa is a student of journalism. She is passionate about digital technologies and tries to implement them in the sphere of education.