I Might Become A Professional Blogger

       In my previous introductory post, I revealed that my dream job would be located somewhere within the mass media world. Maybe in a newsroom, a radio station, a television studio, a publishing house, or even an advertising agency. What never crossed my mind was the idea of blogging. I remember being introduced for the first time to this platform in high school. We had to use a blog as the medium of presentation of a scientific research project. So, instead of writing the work on a Word document and printing it on conventional paper, we had to expose it on the Internet. Something completely new for me.

       The fact that the whole digital world would be able to read my innocent thoughts on science was intimidating and stressful. I wasn’t the kind of shy student that hated PowerPoint presentations or suffer every time the teacher asked for an opinion. I wasn’t afraid of speaking my mind and express myself in front of the class. But in front of the Internet audience? That was a new level. I had never publicly shared anything on digital platforms. All my social networks accounts were, and still are, private. I had never commented on a YouTube video, left an opinion on TripAdvisor, or made a recommendation on Yelp. My digital footprint was minimal, but that was about to change.

       The first entrance of my scientific blog was about four hundred words. I had never reviewed such a short text as many times as I did for that one. I still remember the nervousness and excitement I felt when I clicked on the “publish” button. I thought that over time, by acquiring more blogging experience, that mix of feelings would go away. It didn’t. Although I was getting more confident with the process of writing and posting the entrances, my intimidation for the Internet never disappeared. I never lost respect or underestimated the power of the digital world. Paradoxically, that Internet pressure was one of the main reasons I ended up loving that blog project. The comments, the number of visits, the “likes”, were other positive incentives that encourage me to continue sharing more content. However, once that scientific work was over, the life of my blog was over too. I didn’t even consider once the possibility of keeping it alive. I just didn’t have the time for that.

       So, my blogger facet ended, and I completely forget about this platform. Until now. As a sophomore college student, I had been forced to return to my blogging era. I am currently taking an introductory class about media writing, which is required for my ultimate goal of getting a Mass Media degree. One of the mandatory assignments of this course is creating a blog and submitting a total of five posts. So far, this is my second entrance, and I feel like I have been transported to the past. I am reliving that blogging mix of emotions that I experimented in high school for the first time. Although the concept and the process are still the same, my perspective towards the task has changed. Now that I know I want to professionally work on mass media, I see this new blog project as an opportunity to explore an unpopular side of this field. Blogging is an actual job for many talented people, so why can’t I be one of them? 

       Through this assignment, I’m willing to discover if writing a blog could ever become my future occupation. As I said at the beginning, this idea was never contemplated in my idyllic labor plans. But now that I have been reintroduced to this platform, the good memories from my last, and first, experience in it are being remembered. Back then, writing my scientific blog, I wasn’t aware that I was contributing to the mass media world. My passion for the media community hadn’t aroused yet. I just was a fifteen-year-old girl meeting with a school assignment, excited to share her first words with the Internet. Over the years, that girl has grown. I have evolved into a more educated, open-minded person with clearer ideas of my professional interests and adult life.

       The woman that I am today faces this new blog project as an experimental practice. I want to figure out the real possibilities of me becoming a blogger, not as a hobby, but as an actual job. What topics would I write about? How much money could I earn? Are my writing skills good enough? What do I need to succeed? My goal is to find the answers to all these questions and share them in this blog.