The best thing about Geneseo's small size was the relative lack of intimidation I felt going to an information session for the Lamron, the student newspaper. I had little journalism experience at the time (definitely did not know what AP style was) but sort of felt like, "If I don't write this Features article, who will?" Of course, the paper wasn't made or not based on whatever events I covered that week, but feeling like I had an impact and seeing my name in print made me want to continue. I ended up being involved in the Lamron all four years of Geneseo, and was the Features editor for two semesters.
There's a line from a short story that was first introduced to me by Rachel Hall, during my senior year as a creative writing major. It's called "How to Become a Writer," and the first line is, "First, try to be something, anything else." And I did — I started off as an English literature major, before switching to psychology, before briefly considering a career in medicine, until I realized that writing was really all I wanted to do. The support of the English faculty helped me gain confidence in my writing and envision a life after college in which writing and creativity were both priorities.
Since graduation, I spent a year in France teaching English (learning quickly that teaching was not for me), and then worked odd jobs from my parent's home in Long Island before starting an editorial internship at Babble, a parenting website that was later acquired by Disney. After several years there, I had moved up to Editor and loved working with the various writers and bloggers we employed, helping them hone their ideas into great essays and lists. I eventually moved on to try out publishing at Penguin Random House, where I worked in Managing Editorial, and was able to hone my proofreading and copy editing skills and learn about a whole side of book production I hadn't even considered before. Two years later, a friend mentioned they were hiring at Huffington Post, which is where I am today.
My best advice: keep looking for opportunities, during college and afterward. Find out what you tend to do in your off hours (for me, it was constantly reading the Internet and looking up the lives and works of various contemporary writers, wondering how I could be like them) and try to find a way to incorporate that into your work. And if your current job doesn't line up exactly with your creative vision, that's ok, too — you'll find a way to keep it going in the off hours. Keep going to your library, attend readings, ask questions, research MFA programs, listen to book podcasts — if that's the type of stuff you're into. The stuff you're really excited about can eventually find its way into your work, or at least give you something to look forward to when you clock out.