If you happened to see my bio in The Source last year, you know that I'm somewhat of a blog enthusiast. Having had some success with blogging at MIT, I began working with Oberlin last summer to help the admissions office launch a blogging program of their own, which you may have seen. There are currently four student bloggers, one blogger from the admissions office, and one faculty blogger (who is a good friend and former professor of mine).

Now that I'm here on campus, my plan is to use the experience I gained at MIT to help take Oberlin's current program to the next level. I'm currently in the process of rewriting the backend to allow much easier publishing and comment management. I'm also going to be hiring four additional student bloggers to widen the blogs' collective perspective.

The requirements are pretty simple: you need to be a really good writer, and you need to be willing to write about your life (and the various communities that surround you - living, learning, and otherwise) on a regular basis. Bonus points if you already have a personal blog, and can therefore submit a portfolio that demonstrates your ability to turn the minutiae of daily life into eloquent prose.

In my experience, prospective students care as much about the "how" and the "why" as they do about the "what." In other words, they're generally not interested in simply hearing about what you studied in class, what you ate for lunch, and what film you saw at the Apollo. They want depth. How does it feel to be here? How are you growing as a person? What is meaningful and why? How do the various pieces of your college experience fit together?

If you think you might be interested, drop me an email (ben.jones @ oberlin). It would be great to have a couple of incoming first-year students in the mix, so prefrosh, don't be shy.

[Edit: application is now online!]

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