Creative Writing is one of the most popular majors at Oberlin, and there is no question why. Oberlin is known for its small class sizes that lend themselves to discussion and Socratic seminar, which is perfect for workshopping creative writing. As a CRWR minor, some of my favorite classes have been characterized by reading and discussing mine and my classmates’ work, diving into craft, meaning, and how we can improve our pieces. What I really love about workshop is the energy brought into the classroom: the communal environment of support, constructive criticism, and genuine interest in each other’s writing.
Truly, my favorite part about workshops is getting to read my classmates’ work. Everyone has such unique voices and stories, and it is such a joy to get to experience all of them. I’ve always loved that at Oberlin I get to really know my classmates, and Creative Writing workshops are a great example. Not only do you get to know your classmates as people, you also get to know them as artists; their writing voice, their style, the stories they like to tell. You also get to see how these things evolve over a semester, how they are honed in, strengthened, or even found. Witnessing that in real time is not just exciting, but a wonderful learning experience for yourself as well. It encourages you to keep trying, to find what feels right for your specific piece and writing style, but also how different techniques and choices may lend themselves to different effects. It’s so fun to be inspired by a classmate’s piece and then try out some of the things they did in your own piece. It's so true that the secret to becoming a better writer is to read, read, read lots of different writing and to continually be inspired.
From a learning standpoint, it is fantastic to have your professor and classmates apply the same critical lens that you’ve been applying to published authors to your own work. Not only does it give a sense of legitimacy to your writing, it also allows you to better understand the techniques you may be consciously or unconsciously using. By seeing how published writers write, and what a fully edited, finalized piece looks like, you can then decide how you might want to mirror those things in your own writing, and how you might want to present different topics and stories with different structures. You feel like a student not in a condescending way, but in the way that even the best writers are students by always trying to improve their work. Overall, no matter what you are working on, your piece is treated as valid and full of potential. Even after the class has ended, the professors encourage us to keep working on our pieces to get them to a publishing point. There’s never the unmotivating sense that the work is “just for the class.”
Getting critiques from your classmates in any arts-based class, especially in a small seminar setting, is a fantastic educational and communal experience. Similar to creative writing workshops, I greatly appreciate when I am editing a film or writing a script and get to show it in class, and my classmates help give suggestions and ideas. Moreover, I love seeing their films come together piece by piece, from an idea, to the first shots, to a rough cut, and then the final product. Being in such an intimate setting with fellow artists and creatives is a wonderful aspect of college life, especially in the close-knit quarters of Oberlin. I think the attitude presented by students in workshops is so exemplary of the character of Obies. Everyone is genuinely excited to read each other’s work, engage deeply with the writing, and provide support and constructive criticism. Coming to Oberlin, not only will you be surrounded by some of the most brilliant minds, you will also be in one of the most supportive, enriching environments there is.
