5 Reasons Why You Should Write for the Student Minds Blog

In this blog, Carys, one of our sub-editors, shares the reasons why she writes for this blog and reassures those considering blogging for us…

1. Blogging is powerful:

A lot of people who are struggling with their mental health find comfort on the internet, where they can research symptoms and read stories of personal experiences without anyone knowing. The Student Minds blog is an enormous hub of information about pretty much everything to do with student well-being (if there’s something you feel is missing… write about it for us!). We know a lot of students and recent graduates find comfort and reassurance in the work we publish, in addition to the relevant signposting to other charities or services that they might find beneficial. 

2. Blogging is rewarding:

Furthermore, blogging for us is so rewarding. By sharing your personal story and experience on the “biggest blog dedicated to student mental health and well-being”, you are certainly helping at least one other person to get the help they need or to manage challenging situations. We all know how it feels when university isn’t really the time of our lives like everyone said it would be. The Student Minds blog gives us a platform to help someone else in their recovery. It is so fulfilling. 

3. Blogging does not require you to have a diagnosed mental illness:

Mental health and mental illness are two separate things: everyone has a mental health but only some people have a mental illness. Here at Student Minds we talk about mental health as a continuum, which means we recognise our mental health as fluctuating constantly and as incredibly personal to an individual. Needing to have a mental illness to write for us is a complete myth! Student mental well-being is such a broad subject area that affects all students and we welcome posts from all perspectives. Check out the blog for ideas and examples of titles. 

4. Blogging is for everyone:

Honestly, if you’re interested in contributing to our blog, we want to hear from you! Even if you’ve never blogged before or are not sure about your topic being relevant – I bet if past-you would have found it useful, it will be for someone else too! 

In addition to our blogging guidelines which contain loads of blogging tips and rules, there is the blog editorial team. There are 9 of us in total and we are just ordinary student volunteers from across the UK - not professional writers or famous bloggers – so the pressure’s off! After you’ve sent us your draft blog via the Write for the Blog web-page, one of us will be assigned to work with you to make sure that it is trigger-free and typo-free before uploading it. We will always make sure you’re happy with the edited version before we publish. Lots of you may be worried about “writing the wrong thing” – a concern we hear a lot. The role of the editorial team is to make sure things are appropriate to publish and we are trained to spot these “wrong things” and change them. 

Finally, an average blog post is 600-800 words – not a lot at all! It’s not as time consuming or difficult as you might think. We also are not just all about blogging: this year we are wanting to expand the blog to include vlogs! If writing isn’t your thing but the camera is, why not give it a go? 

5. Blogging is awesome:

The blogging community (you guys) is really the heart of the blog. So many contributors from many different walks of life all come together to make this blog a reality – it could be you too! I personally love the mini biography and photo at the end of each post, as it really helps give some personality to the blog and show that we are all just students helping other students. In this section we are more than happy to link your personal blog or website too if you’d like! 

However, we understand writing about mental health can be a sensitive area and sometimes you’re not quite fully ready to share. Of course, you can publish your blog anonymously – we just won’t put this part at the end, nor your name in the blurb – either giving you a pseudonym of your choice or simply being called anon.

Behind this blog are 9 amazing volunteers who give up our time to make this a reality and be a huge source of information for students and recent graduates across the UK. We all really hope to see your work in our inbox and online very soon! If you have any questions you can tweet or DM us @StudentMindsOrg and we’ll get back to you! 

I'm Carys, a 4th year Modern Languages student at Durham University. As well as my passion for languages and travel, I love talking about mental health and I am one of the Student Minds editors this year. Please get in touch if you have any questions or comments about my work - I love hearing from you!