On the first day of the Fredonia Summer Music Festival, I was extremely nervous. Staring straight at me was a 5-day, fully immersive camp designed to simulate the experience of majoring in music. I had chosen the Songwriting & Composition track, and though I’ve been writing music for two years, I was crippled with self-doubt. What if I’d been doing it all wrong? I was afraid that I’d missed some fundamental rule about writing music, one that everyone was in on except me. But more than that, I was afraid of the process of improving, the vulnerability that would come along with it. Songwriting is an incredibly personal process. I was resistant to the idea of bringing something in, unfinished, and asking for critiques. Everything that I shared had to be perfect, I thought, or else how would people see me? What would the professor think if I brought her a half-baked, imperfect idea as the only frame of reference for my ability as a writer? The songwriting faculty, Dr. Emily Pinkerton, surprised me. I brought a chorus and half a verse into a session, apologizing over every word. “Finish it”, she said, “before you decide that it can’t be fixed”.