Choosing a college for creative writing

Hello! If you’re here, that probably means you watched this video and have emailed me about additional creative writing resources:

I was getting many emails about this YouTube video and it was becoming overwhelming to answer them all so I decided to compile all of what I was telling you into a page on my website for you to peruse.

“Where do i start?”

Searching for colleges is scary and overwhelming, but what I learned during my transfer experience is that the most important factor in choosing a college is happiness. Choose a college where you will be happy—especially if you are going to pursue writing. It is hard for me to be motivated creatively if my mental health is suffering.

As I explained in the video, I found a great writing education at Tufts which is not known for its creative writing program. One of the reasons for this is that its creative writing program was smaller, and it didn’t get as many first-year students going there to pursue creative writing as Kenyon did. I got a lot of individualized attention from professors at Tufts. Professors took the time to work on novels with me, and professors at Kenyon did not want to work on novels with me because of their length.

But looking for schools that don’t have prestigious writing programs is not going to guarantee you finding a good program. I’m not going to recommend specific schools to you because I did my college research 5+ years ago and my knowledge is outdated. So here is how I recommend you look for schools.

how to research schools

Step 1: Find some schools where you will be happy

Maybe you like small liberal arts schools with ~1,600 students. Maybe you want to go to school in a big city. Maybe a big city would be too overwhelming. Figure out some places that have strong academic programs in places that you would like to live with student bodies that you think you’d fit into.

Step 2: Research their creative writing course offerings

Most colleges have their creative writing courses published on their department pages. Run a Google search for something like “XYZ University creative writing courses fall 20__” and see what comes up. Make sure they have creative writing courses offered, then move onto the next step.

Step 3: Look up professors

Who are the people teaching the creative writing courses? If you want to write novels, make sure the people teaching the courses have written novels. Same with short stories. Same with poetry. There is no one way to learn how to write, but finding a mentor who you respect who will pay attention to you is so helpful.

Step 4: Reach out to professors

If you find professors you want to work with in the faculty who teach creative writing courses, email them. Some colleges or universities don’t let first-years take creative writing courses, and some of the “big name” faculty at the schools might only teach grad students. So make sure you will actually be able to take classes with them.

Step 5: Research extracurricular writing opportunities

Many schools have creative writing clubs or writing groups. Some might have slam poetry nights. Open mic opportunities. If you’re going to school in a big city, there might be writing groups to join off-campus, or even online. Remember: a college isn’t going to teach you how to write. You are going to teach yourself how to write, and it’s your job to put in the time to practice, and seek out opportunities that can help you grow.

my biggest piece of advice for you

A college’s creative writing program is not EVER going to be as important as whether you are happy at that college. You are not going to learn how to write by going through a creative writing program. You are going to learn to write by writing A LOT.

You can create opportunities to write in many different ways. Most colleges offer some form of creative writing course, so take those classes. Go to office hours. Inquire about doing independent studies where you can write entire books or screenplays. Do NaNoWriMo in college. Join creative writing clubs. Seek off-campus writing groups or opportunities. Self-publish books while in college. Query agents. Go to conferences. Decide you’re going to write a book and follow through with it. Find beta readers online. Revise based on their feedback. Do critique swaps with critique partners. Take online MasterClasses or classes taught by authors on Skillshare.

You need to invest the time and energy to writing in order to get better, and you can do that no matter where you go to college. So choose a college where you will be happy, put in the work, and the rest will work itself out.