Spencer Burleigh, cofounder of Rent the Backyard once casually
mentioned that he wished he had started maintaining a blog when he was in
school. Later, we at AlligatorZone invited him for a special podcast to hear
more of his views on blogging. Along with reading this essay, please also consider
listening to that podcast (linked here).
Now, back to the topic of this article. By ‘body building’,
what we mean is building a body of work.
Remember the chicken or egg situation that students leaving
college sometimes face, where they do not get hired because they lack work
experience, and do not have work experience because they do not get hired?
Blogging addresses this challenge by allowing a student to display a body of work easily to the outside
world.
A blog empowers students to independently publish their best
work and make it easy for anyone to get a quick glimpse into how they think.
What can be a body of work for a middle-school or a high
school student, you may wonder. School projects in a favorite subject can be a
body of work. Deep thoughts about a passion project or a hobby demonstrate a
body of work.
If you can write about your schoolwork or hobby and bring your
own perspective, it will be unique and refreshing. What you write in your blog
can be interesting to any reader who wants to learn about the subject you love
and to learn about you.
Your blog is one simple way for your self-promotion without
self-promoting.
However, the benefit does not end there. Regular blogging by
itself results in a steady flow of creative expression. That makes a blog its
own body of work. Something that every employer in industry, every college
admission official and every professional looks for is whether a candidate has
clarity in expressing ideas and can write in an engaging manner. A carefully managed
blogging strategy, where students write consistently and find their voice will
pay huge dividends for a long time.
This article is a ramp up to our launch of our new module ‘Blog School’. Learn about our other programs at AlligatorZone.org
