My biggest advice to new college students is the theory of “keeping an open mind”. At 18 years old, when I started my first year of undergrad, I had a clear vision of who I perceived myself to be at that moment in time. I knew exactly what I wanted out of a ‘college experience’. However, I started college during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. With that came upheavals in campus life and classroom function. My daydreams of college life were a mismatch to the reality of the pandemic’s limitations.
Though I knew I wanted to be an English major since my sophomore year of high school, which is a blessing to have a passionate goal so young, I didn’t exactly know what that entailed. I knew I wanted to write, and knew I wanted to become this marvelous author one way or another. The way my major was broken down, I had to take core courses that covered a couple different writing bases. One of the first English course classes I chose was Genres: Poetry. I always liked poetry but never paid it much attention. I always considered myself a short-story fiction writer in search of the feat of writing a full-length novel manuscript.
The poetry course surprised me, however. I found writing poetry to be quite cathartic during the tumultuous and depressing time of quarantine. Instead of going to classes, I was on Zoom at home in my bedroom for the first semester of my college experience. The days that my poetry course fell on started to become the days I looked forward to the most, loving being able to workshop and talk to other like-minded individuals about this style of writing. Soon, I was writing poetry on my own time in addition to the required coursework.
Once I was able to live and take classes on campus, this newfound love of writing poetry stuck to me. I sought out even more classes that would allow poetry workshops and close reading. While I still took fiction writing courses, poetry became a true love of mine. It changed the whole trajectory of where I thought my English major would take me, as well as a huge portion of my undergraduate experience as a whole. Through my workshop courses, I learned about the on-campus, student-lead creative writing and visual arts journal, LA Miscellany. There was no question that I not only wanted to submit my work for publication but wanted to become apart of the editorial team. By the time I graduated, I had earned the title of Editor-in-Chief of the journal and worked on the board for two years. I was able to find other poets on campus and collaborate with them on their pieces. I then went on to win a first-place award for one of my poems, and was asked to speak about LA Miscellany at the end of the year English Department Award Ceremony.
When actively working on versatility to what balance can mean as an undergraduate student, that frees up an open mind in which your inner talents can come to the surface in ways you may not have expected. I never expected writing poetry to take on the role of creative craft, emotional outlet, and productive purpose when I signed up for that first class. Let sudden interests have room to be able to snowball, saying ‘yes’ to many aspects of pursuing an academic or extracurricular community. It could be a very important area of your life, with a glorious trajectory by the time graduation rolls around.
By: Madeleine Misner
Madeleine Misner is a writer and NYU graduate student in the MS in Publishing program. She loves going out to dinner with her friends, reading long books, and attending spoken-word poetry events. Madeleine always loves to connect with other writers and creative thinkers alike!
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