A good friend of mine, Shivani, is attending Georgia Tech as a freshman this year. One of her favorite things was to send people mail. From care packages to letters, everything. So when Dr. Menke told us that we’d be writing a letter to someone, I knew I had to write one to Shivani.

I’ve never actually properly written a letter before. I would only write a few sentences on a card. Something along the lines of a “Happy Birthday! Have a great day!”. But writing a letter is so much more different because it requires a lot more effort than a simple pre-messaged card. I found that writing letters was a lot more extensive than sending a text or video calling. I had to think about what I was gonna write and how much I could write before I couldn’t write anymore. I couldn’t attach funny memes or post links for good songs.

As a very sentimental person if I were to receive a letter, I’d keep it for a very long time, reading it over the years. Because of this, writing the letter struck me differently, in a good way. It was a completely different experience and I might actually take it up as a regular habit.

When I first heard about this assignment I really had no idea who I was going to write to.  I only live about an hour away and talk to most of my family on a daily basis through texts, so I wasn’t really sure who I wanted to write.  I ended up writing to my boyfriend who I don’t get to see or talk to as often as everyone else.  It was a lot easier than I initially thought it was going to be.  I thought it was going to be a really awkward letter full of me just rambling on about random stuff that has happened during these past few weeks, but it turned out a lot better, and easier than I thought.

After writing the letter, I found myself somewhat frustrated; that’s the best way I can describe it, but I wasn’t upset.  I  was just so excited for my boyfriend to read the letter, but I knew I was going to have to wait about a week for him to even get it. I didn’t want to ruin the surprise of me writing the letter either, but I felt so weird writing all this stuff down to tell him and then having to wait more than two minutes for him to read it and respond, but I still enjoyed it.

Going into this assignment, I was thinking this is going to be very difficult. I was asking my roommate, “How do you even start a letter?” The only letters I’ve ever written to my knowledge that I can remember would be thank you notes 2 months ago for graduation gifts. I have no idea how many thank you notes I wrote, but it was a good many and all I could think of then was it only gets worse, there’s going to be a lot more when it comes time for me to get married. My hand was aching after all those thank you notes. But when I actually started writing this letter it wasn’t bad at all. I wrote to my God-father who lives in Alpharetta and I don’t really see him on a regular basis. I just started rambling about my college experience and what all I’m becoming involved with and I just thanked him for everything he’s done for me. And that I absolutely love it here in Athens! It was so much easier for me write down what all is going on with me in Athens than telling someone. You can write so much more and it helps you remember everything by writing it down. Writing that letter was a little bit strange because I’ve never written a letter before. It’s so much easier to just pick up a phone and ask somebody how their day was. But honestly I think it is so much more meaningful to a person if you write them a handwritten letter rather than, shooting them a text or email. I think it shows that you actually care and that you actually mean what you are saying. I enjoyed getting this opportunity to write a handwritten letter.

When reading this assignment, I struggled to decide which family member or friend I wanted to write to. I ultimately decided to write a letter to my older brother Nick, who goes to Auburn. My brother and I are very close, and text or snapchat each other almost every day. This made writing a letter to him very difficult because I am just not used to sitting down and writing my thoughts on paper. It was difficult to determine what exactly I wanted to write to him, and I struggled to find the right wording. I finally just had to start writing and realize that I could say whatever I wanted to say, and that nothing was going to be “wrong”. Ultimately, letter writing was a positive experience for me. I am excited for my brother to receive my letter because I feel a letter is far more personal and sentimental than a text. I am encouraged now to eventually write letters to all of my family members and friends because they are a thoughtful keepsake that can be saved and cherished forever.

From the moment I saw this assignment, I knew that I wanted to write a letter to my mom and dad. I am incredibly close with my parents, and I always wanted to write a letter to them while at college, but I never got around to doing it. I am really glad writing a letter was an assignment because it forced me to do it. I don’t have my stationary with me at college, so I had to write my letter on a piece of notebook paper, which caused me to write a pretty long letter. Since I knew I probably wouldn’t write another letter to my parents, I decided to use up the entire sheet of paper and really go into detail about not only me college experience so far, but also my childhood. Writing this letter caused me to really think back and reflect upon my childhood and how my parents did so much for me, and still do. By focusing on only my letter, I was able to remember many memories that I have not though about in so long. I feel like everyday I am so busy and I never have time to reflect on my life now and then, so I really loved being able to have this time of reflection. I did not think that I was going to take a long time writing this letter, but it ended up taking me about an hour to get everything in the letter that I wanted to. I am really excited for my parents to get the letter because I feel like they are going to really love it and they will be able to save it and really cherish it. Overall, I loved writing the letter and I thought that it was an amazing experience!

Writing a letter is not as easy as it seems. When I first heard this assignment I expected it to take me about 10-15 minutes to write the letter, but it ended up taking just 15 minutes to figure out how to start the letter. I wrote a letter to my best friend that is going to school in Alabama. Whenever we are together we can never stop talking, but I was surprised at how awkward I felt while writing the letter even though I was writing to one of my best friends. Staring at the blank sheet of paper as the minutes passed by, I had no idea what to write. I felt like I was overthinking everything that I wrote because it felt more permanent when I wrote it by hand. Once I started writing, I sort of felt like I was either talking to myself or overpowering the conversation because there was no response from the other side. I have been so used to sending or saying short messages to people through texts, emails, or phone calls and then immediately receiving a response. Even though I had so much to say and to tell my friend, I just did not know how to put it into words for the letter. Finally, I just decided that I was overthinking myself too much and wrote down everything that I was thinking. Once I finished the letter, I realized that I have no idea what my friend’s address is at school. Sure, we did just move to new addresses for school, but it’s weird to think how we can be best friends with someone yet not know something as basic as their address. I can’t imagine what my friend’s response is going to be when she receives my letter because the only time we really get letters in the mail these days are for “thank you” letters. I definitely underestimated how hard it would be to write a letter.

I wrote my letter to my older brother who lives in Virginia which was weird because I only really communicate with him through text, occasional phone calls, or in person when he visits home. Handwriting a letter wasn’t anything particularly odd or new for me because I hand-wrote all my senior letters for my close friends a few months ago. I like the concept of handwriting letters because it feels more sentimental. I felt the need to fill out a whole page to fill in my brother on my life whereas through text it is confined to a mere 160 characters in one message. Writing this letter gave me the opportunity to reminisce with my brother during this transition to college and thank him for being an awesome sibling so this assignment was super fun for me!

Letters during this modern age may be outdated, but they’re thoughtful and sentimental. It’s a nice form of media to go back to because it means people take time out of their day to sit down and think out what they want to say as opposed to shooting a quick text or email.

So I wrote an actual letter other than a thank you letter for the first time in about 5 years today, and wow was it odd. While writing the letter, I noticed  that I was very unsure of the proper formatting that comes with writing a letter and quickly found myself on google. Another interesting development that I noticed was my inclination to use texting language in the formal letter, something that would be considered rather out of place. I was struggling for sentences and thoughts that actually contained substance and worthy of writing down in the letter as well. The recipient of my letter is a friend of mine who is still in high school, so I absolutely had plenty of talking points, but I kept coming up short as all my sentences seemed to be simple sentences. This process actually opened my eyes to how much texting and mass media have revolutionized the communication realm of the world. Although letters have been highly efficient for hundreds of years, in a mere 10 years they have been completely overtaken by social media. This is a slightly saddening reality that we all have to deal with, but optimistically we can appreciate just how easily we are able to communicate with others around the globe.

Okay, so I just finished writing a letter to my cousin who goes to school in Florida and I would have to say it was very weird. Typically if I want to get ahold of her I would just shoot her a text message. Writing a letter to her seems so odd and formal to me. It makes you take a step back and actually think about what you are saying, rather than just clicking send too fast to even spell check.
If you had asked me to send someone a letter 4 months ago, I would have been ashamed at the fact that I would have struggled to address it. That’s insane! Twelve years of public school education and I would have struggled with addressing an envelope. The only reason I am (barely) comfortable with this form of media is because I wrote close to 50 thank you notes this summer for graduation gifts.
It’s crazy to me that our generation has almost completely eliminated this form of media from our lives. Also, this form of media is very generational. Here at college, my grandma sends me a handwritten letter every week keeping me up to date about her life. I would typically just text her about what’s new with me, but after this assignment I am going to go buy stationary and become her official pen pal. Taking the time to analyze what you are going to say when writing a letter truly seems so much more meaningful and heartfelt then texting someone.