I’m graduating university in a couple of months and it’s awoken a bittersweet mix of dread and gratitude. Granted, I’m returning to Queen’s for teacher’s college in September, but still, I feel uneasy about leaving my undergrad years behind. I’m going to miss the “quintessentially undergrad” moments – the late- night talks with all my housemates, walking to the library on a colourful fall day, doing the New York Times Mini in lecture and wine nights with my friends. My high school experience was made especially lacklustre by the pandemic, so, naturally I hold my undergrad years closer to my heart.
Does this mean I am peaking in university? I hope not.
However, I think that one of the things that has made my undergrad years so distinct and memorable has been the practice of personal writing.
I only have a handful of HerCampus articles posted, but in addition to those articles are random .txt files on my computer, short blurbs in my Notion page and brain vomit in my notes app. These bits and pieces of writing range from lighthearted observations to paragraphs worth of exclamations that I wish I would’ve used in that one argument that happened three years ago.
Most notably, I caved to the wellness influencers and decided to take up journaling in 2024. Now, before you create that “xyz” mental picture, I’d like to preface this by saying that I am by no means an aesthetic journal entry writer. Anyone who has seen my handwriting knows this to be true. To me, journaling is not a regulatory practice that is intended to result in an artful page with a thoughtful layout. Rather, I see journaling as a means of keeping me present through challenging moments.
As a graduating senior, I can confidently say that in my experience, undergrad can often feel like a rat race where one scroll on LinkedIn can lead to a spiral of unhealthy comparison and self-doubt. Any time that I have found myself amidst this spiral, writing in my journal has helped to ground me and remind me that comparing your entire life to one aspect of someone else’s is pointless in the grand scheme of things. Writing has helped me see the big picture clearly and grounds me from the overstimulation of these inevitable invasive thoughts. For me, choosing to write means choosing to invest in my well-being.
Looking back at my journal entries, desktop files, and notes for my HerCampus articles, I see how my everyday experiences have shaped me and contributed to my personal growth throughout undergrad – even if I didn’t know it at the time. My scattered archive of writing has shown me that I am a person, not a self-improvement project.
In many ways, I don’t think that we can consider ourselves to be the “main character” in our everyday lives. Take one stroll down Princess St. on a Friday night and you will overhear several eavesdrop-worthy conversations and witness every type of social interaction ranging from physical fights to groups of friends dancing down the sidewalk. However, in my experience at least, I find that writing allows me to position myself as the main character.
Writing acts as a form of catharsis and reading your past writings is an effective way to learn about yourself as you go through the transformative years of undergrad. I recognize that undergrad is just the beginning and I have many more obstacles and adventures ahead of me that will be worth writing about, but, if you are a current undergrad student reading this, then I highly encourage you to try personal writing so that you have something special to look back on. I’m nervous, yet eager to see what’s ahead for me and I’ll be taking my journal on the way.