Free Creative Writing Prompts #31: College

For some people, their college experience is perfectly described by that animal house picture of John Belushi wearing a shirt that says "College" on it. Others have had a primarily academic experience and have learned lessons that have guided them throughout the rest of their lifetimes. These free creative writing prompts about college can help you use whatever experiences you've had and harvest them for writing ideas. Personally, my experience was mixed between crazy hijinks and grand changes in my personality and my views on the world. This will color these prompts thoroughly :). Happy writing!


Free Creative Writing Prompts: College

1. Describe your first crush in college. If you were me, it was during freshman orientation :). It could be brief and it may have resulted from the huge influx in new people into your life, but it is an important event to recall. Describe as much of it as you can and fill in the details with creative elaboration.

2. Talk about a class and a professor that really changed your life. It may have been the professor that you went to see every week during office hours or it may have just been a lecturer that you never even interacted with. Detail why this made such an impact on you.

3. Not everybody had a freshman 15 (a weight gain of 15 pounds freshman year), but almost all freshman have a big gain of some kind (religion, friends, long walk from the dorms). Talk about the big gain you might have experienced from that first year.

4. For many people, going to college is the first time living with another person in those wonderfully cramped dorm rooms. How were your college dorm room experiences? Talk about a few big events that occured in your dorm room life. How many times were you walked in on during make-out sessions? During...personal sessions? :) The list of potential awkward situations are endless :).

5. Talk about the social aspects of your college town. Was it a mostly self-contained beast (a la Penn State University) or was there an urban or country zone surrounding and influencing the campus? How did this affect your experiences?

6. My freshman year at our first big class meeting (no small feat at a state school) we had a speaker tell us to find two things in our time in college: one thing to love and one person to love. Did you find those two things? If so, talk about them, if not, talk about your close encounters.

7. Drinking. Can't help but get into that one a bit. Even if you didn't drink, what was a big experience that you had in college with drinking. If you did, I'm sure you had a few ;). Talk about one or more and try to color in periods that you blacked out with fun elaboration.

8. Talk about your first (or most memorable) parental visit experience during college. All the awkwardness and the explanation that needs to occur can make these some of the most important events during school. Try to recall one that was a real game-changing event.

9. Going back home from the holidays is a big part of college. Friends change, you change. Talk about an experience in which this was completely evident and what this made you think about your high school friendships and the town itself.

10. Do you feel proud to be an alumni (or will you feel proud when you've graduated) of your school? Do you watch the games and donate to the funds, etc.? Why or why not do you feel this way or do these things in relation to your school?


In writing these, I feel like there were at least 20 more free creative writing prompts about college that I could've written. Going to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was a life-altering experience for me and it helped me to be the blogger that I am today :). I feel very fortunate to have gone through the positive and negative experiences of school and I hope that many of you learned as much about yourself in school as I did. Happy memory lane tripping and happy writing!


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