Lost Your Creative Spark in College? I Promise It Will Be Ok

Reported By: Shelby McCormick

Illustrated By: Sydney Simmons

Ask any English major about the last time they read a book for fun. Or an art major the last time they did an art project for the heck of it. You may occasionally get a particularly ambitious individual who will say “This week!” but more often than not, you will get dismal answers of varying degrees from “Not since the semester started,” to “Not in the last four years.”

This is the fate of creative burnout that many humanities majors face. While academic burnout is something faced by many students, losing one’s creative spark in a major that relies on that creative spark to produce work can be disheartening and make you feel like you chose the wrong career path. 

Many of us got into these majors because we love discussing literature, art, music or theatre, but when we’re asked day in and day out to scrutinize these works and create them, we often find ourselves no longer looking to do it of our own free will.

It can often be the big elephant in the room that no one wants to admit to, but I am here as your old and wise senior English major to tell you if you are feeling like this, you are not alone and there are some things you can do to help.

My biggest word of advice is to hold on to the fact that these feelings are right now, not forever. College only lasts a finite amount of time, and even if you never pick up a book and read it for fun all four years, it’s ok. That little kid that ate up books like candy will come back. I find even in the summers my desire to read and write for fun skyrockets. School is hard, and you have to devote a lot of energy to it. That means less energy goes to being creative, and that is ok.

My second word of advice is to run with the little bits of creativity you experience without guilt and shame. There are things you can do that will both help foster creativity and also help with general well-being.

One of those is going for walks, and not just a walk to get somewhere, but a walk for walking’s sake. A walk where you slow down and take in the world. I did this once and saw a half-mowed lawn with a lawn mower abandoned in the middle of it. I went home and wrote a story about it, just a few hundred words long. I didn’t write any more, but that little bit reminded me that I can write for fun and why I fell in love with the English major to begin with.

Your vocation is much like a long-term relationship; there are going to be days where you just have to show up when you might not want to. But don’t go too many days without reminding yourself why you fell in love with it in the first place.