Dear HCSLU,
It’s hard to believe that my time with you is coming to an end. My final days of college are numbered, and soon I’ll be expected to make my way into the real world. My college experience truly would not have been the same without you, and I wanted to express my gratitude in the best way I know how: writing.
Throughout my childhood, reading and writing were an escape. Books brought me to fantastical worlds and on treacherous quests. They taught me lessons, gave me laughs and always seemed to have my back. I thought I had wanted to create worlds like these and use my words as a tool. I thought an author or a journalist would have been the perfect career for me. That’s what I had wanted to strive for until a rotten high school teacher squashed those dreams of mine. Her mincing words were enough to discourage me from pursuing writing any further. She made my writing feel inferior and not worth spreading. So I stopped writing for myself and only read the books assigned in class. It felt as if there was no point to it anymore. I gave up on that passion and pursued science instead. I think, deep down, I just wanted to get as far away from writing as possible—that’s how discouraged I felt.
I never stopped wondering, though, what would have happened if I had decided to pursue journalism instead. Would I have ended up at a different college? Would I have had different friends? Would I have been happy with that choice? I love being a science-related major, and feel that it’s the right path for me entirely, but science sometimes lacks emotion or expression. It lacks the creativity and the humanness that writing has. During my freshman year of college, this is what I felt myself missing. I wasn’t fulfilled in what I was doing–there was something missing in my life.
Thankfully, during my sophomore year of college, I came upon Her Campus SLU (HCSLU). I immediately fell in love with what I was reading. This was a place for creativity, for ingenuity, for expression of emotions and for human connection. I needed this space where I was free to write about my experiences and the things that mattered to me. I needed this space full of love, encouragement and empowerment. It was exactly what I felt I had been missing.
HCSLU reinvigorated my love for reading and writing once more. It made me feel that my words were important and that they did have power to them. It made me feel listened to and truly seen by the people around me. It made me feel free and confident to be my authentic self. HCSLU showed me how beautifully creative, outspoken, passionate and diverse my classmates were. From pop culture to health, HCSLU provided a space and a place for all of it. I can’t express enough how thankful or how proud I am to have been just a small part of that.
I know that HCSLU has made me a better person, and I will always look back at it fondly. Thank you, HCSLU, for exposing me to so much greatness and giving me the opportunity to find this passion for writing once more. I am eternally grateful that you’ve given this back to me.
Always yours,
Isabella