So I’ve thought about blogging lots of times before. All my friends are doing it, putting themselves out there as witty, articulate bright young things and me…well, I just haven’t…I think it’s mostly fear to be honest. Fear of the great, yawning, judgemental void of cyberspace. What if I’m not clever enough or witty enough or interesting enough? Kind of like being the nerdy kid at school and getting invited to the cool kid’s party, but magnified by literally billions. Everyone out there, every single person, in this whole, vast universe has the potential to a) read this blog post, and b) be much cooler than me.

Aside from my own deep-seated anxieties which will probably keep therapists in gainful employment for years to come, there was always a nagging feel of doubt in the back of my mind as to the point of a blog. I mean, let’s be honest, who is going to be interested in my ramblings about top ten female science fiction characters (yes, this was a blog post I write and never posted. Which probably illustrates why getting invited to the cool party at school was such a rare occasion), but, I’m starting to realise that blogs with a purpose might actually have quite a lot of point. Particularly in an educational context.

I spent much of last year, running the student theatre programme at another university. This role involved spending a lot of time making cups of tea for stressed out students who were convinced they’d fail their essay/ forget their lines/ lose their voice. They were always incredibly reassured if I could tell them a similar story of essay disorganisation/ sore throat related dilemmas. it was that act of social connection which was so helpful and I guess that’s what blogging does. People in similar situations can suddenly communicate with other people facing similar problems and overcoming similar problems. The old maxim rings true a problem shared is a problems halved (or something like that. I’m not great at remembering old maxims, but you get the idea).

There are practical reasons too; a blog can be an easy way to communicate with a tutor or learn about a course before you apply for it. After all, there’s no substitute for the human perspective. Blogs can also work to de-mystify the scary abyss of higher education. For those on the outside, it can be as mysterious as Colditz on a cloudy day. For those thinking of applying, reading the ramblings of a student about their favourite female sci-fi characters or their essay stress can be a great instigator of possibility, of the idea that these people are just like me so maybe I should apply too.

there may even be a career advantage to blogging; life is increasingly lived in the twittersphere. Employers trawl the internet’s darkest corners searching for their next rising star. Blogs, instagram and the like can lift a CV, bring a sense of personality into the mix, prove that, yes, I do have an identity beyond a generic degree and an interest in ‘travelling’.

And blogs can even come in handy in the most unexpected of situations. While I was working in theatre last year, we borrowed a cat named Percy to be in a play. Sadly, Percy didn’t take to the theatrical life (there’s a reason why the theatre doesn’t have a long history of performing felines) and decided to make a bid for freedom and go forth into the mean streets of the city. The poor student production team had a collective meltdown in the green room about Percy’s potential fate and started posting the story of feline misadventure on all their collective blogs and twitter accounts and facebook pages. The result: #findthecat starting trending on twitter and photos of Percy in various locations around the city started pouring in. We found him unharmed (and happily asleep in the library) in under an hour. Such is the power of blogging.