"Publishing" does not have to mean that your work will be printed and sold in bookstores. Getting your writing ready to submit is a form of publishing as well, and there is always the opportunity to publish your own work on a blog or a similar outlet. Regardless of whether you are sending to a book printer, putting a post online for the world to read, or formatting and assembling a paper for a professor to evaluate, you want your work to present a good impression of you and your ideas.