People should become banter bloggers. When I got this job, I thought that it would be a way to make some extra money and an excuse to write something every week. I enjoy writing, but as a science major, I don’t get to write much that isn’t riddled with internal citations. Sometimes I cite things that I write in emails. These are, however, only two benefits to being a banter blogger. There are a lot of unexpected things that happened when I started putting more of my life online.

First of all, professors started reading my tweets. Since the college often retweets what I tweet using #bmcbanter, I would have professors referencing things I tweeted in conversation. For example, I may tweet about something funny my professor said in class, which the college will put on their campus weekly or Twitter account. Then, a little while later, I’ll get an email from a professor saying “I saw your tweet. I’m glad you enjoy how funny I am in class”.

Secondly, my parents find out more about what I am doing. I call my parents often enough, but sometimes I’ll leave some things out. If I write about my adventures on my blog, however, I’ll get a phone call the next day: “Marissa, why were you in New Jersey? How did you even get there? Why didn’t you visit Aunt Karen while you were there?” The blog pretty much allows everyone to keep tabs on me: parents, professors, even my coaches.

Finally, the point of a blog is that you have to have something to write about every week. The idea is that college students are interesting: we live in large buildings with a hundred other people our age pretty much unsupervised, the college spends a lot of time and effort putting on events for us that range from the academically stimulating keynote speaker to pure fun; like the free build-a-bear event (this one is like the real-world Hunger Games). A benefit of my blog is that I’ve started to take advantage of these things in order to have something to write about. The end of the week will roll around and I’ll realize that I’ve done nothing but got to class and practice. In this situation, I’ll decide to go to whatever event has been most publicized this week, take notes, and write a post. I’ve gone to some really cool events that I never would have without the pressure of making my life sound interesting on the internet.