Allison Raeck

Much like an awkward, fledgling baby bird, I was thrown out of the nest and forced to fly during "The Middle" of my journey. Gone were the days of the five-paragraph essay, and I finally began to take creative risks in academic assignments. My junior year, I also took the biggest risk of all: convincing myself I could make it in the media industry. Choosing writing as a professional path shaped the pieces I created during these "middle" years, and inspired me to dive into journalistic writing. It was also during these awkward, developing years that I had an existential crisis when attempting to write creative fiction, and questioned whether college had stripped me of my creativity.