How lockdowns have helped me turn my writing passion into student journalism

With lockdown adding huge uncertainty to everything in the past year, students are facing more time alone than ever.  There hasn’t been a lot to celebrate recently, yet lockdown gave me the tools to really find a student passion. Becoming active in student media.

I still  look back on things I’m really missing, such as clubbing until the early hours, but writing has helped fill the new void of free time we were all presented with from March last year.  Lockdown gave me the confidence to follow my hopes of being a member of student media societies at York and here’s why:

There was so much TIME

Writing is something I’ve always enjoyed,  I’ve been involved with Nouse right from freshers fair. But by the start of my  third term  last year I’d still written a grand total of zero articles. I was too scared. There was always a reason not to try. There’s too many deadlines coming up. I’ll try again next time.

Lockdown gave me a huge amount of spare time, so I got involved straight away with writing and 22 articles later I’d made it to Arts Editor for Nouse and joined the York Tab as a student writer. Something that I might not of ever had the confidence to do beforehand.

I could focus on being creative

As an English Lit student writing is a must. However, in academic essays you don’t always get to explore that creative side of yourself. Student media allowed me to channel my creativity into journalistic writing and not just essays over lockdown.  I even had the chance to create my own review series celebrating creatives from across the world.

I was able to focus on writing about the positives emerging from the arts world and not the negative feelings caused by the pandemic. Writing became an outlet that I couldn’t be more thankful for.

I worked on my confidence

I’ve always loved writing, but I was just lacking in confidence. If I’d never taken the first step I would never have realised it was for me and so the saying “you never know unless you try” couldn’t be more true than when applied to my journey into student media. Thanks to the push lockdown gave me, I’ve been given the confidence to aspire to pursue Journalism as a full time career.

Whether you’re interested in writing, trying a new style of dance, or even joining dog society I would urge you to put yourself out there. Everyone has to start off somewhere and it could end up being the best decision you ever make. Lockdowns are so tough on our mental health, being creative gives you such an important break from everything that’s going on currently.

Whatever you decide to try this lockdown, or even if just getting dressed is an achievement lately, you’ve got this!