College Blog

I used to be skeptical about blogging. Having lived in Southeast Asia for most of my life, many people would blog to whine about their petty misfortunes or as a way to earn free endorsements from beauty companies. So it’s not surprising to treat blogging as a mindless entertainment. Think “Perez Hilton” and the first few things that come to our mind are celebrity gossips and bad writing.

Up until last fall, I had never invested enough time to maintain a blog. Some of my challenges came from the misconception that I had to satisfy the readers other than myself. Another problem is finding the time to write. Given the hectic schedule from studying and working in school for 40 hours a week, it’s even challenging to find some free time to myself.

While the idea of blogging started out as a digital medium to replace the traditional diaries and notebooks, its nature has changed over the years. What used to be the work of a single person has now developed into collaboration with many authors.

With journalism transitioning to the digital world, blogging has now become an important requirement for every professional journalist. The content is no longer restricted to mundane personal entries, but also professionally edited to cater the mainstream readers.

Michael Roppolo, a third year journalism student at RIT, shared his view on the importance of writing and maintaining a blog.

“Blogs are worth reading when they are interesting, factual and have a specific voice – a storytelling style that is unlike anything you've ever heard,” Roppolo said.

The 20-year-old also stressed the use of social media to engage more readers. “You can have the best, most interesting blog in the world, but without social media, your blog will not get readers,” Roppolo said.

For Tianna Manon, 19, a second year journalism student, blogging has been an essential tool in news reporting. “Because I'm learning photo and video, I use my blog posts to debut the work,” Mannon said. “I often flit from one thing to the next and having a blog has kept me grounded and working/developing one thing.”

If there’s one thing I learned about blogging so far, it gives me more input to my writing skills and at the same time, helps me build more credibility in developing my career. There is no doubt that the endless opportunity from making my presence known in the digital world will be tremendous.

There may be others out there who don’t believe in relying on technology, but I know that engaging myself with other writers and readers will give me new ideas and inspire me to write more consistently. The world, after all, is full of fascinating and intellectual people.