This past weekend I had the amazing opportunity of attending the first Her Campus conference in New York City! The event was filled with panels of successful women, tables of food and bags of giveaways. The sponsorships by Intel and other fabulous companies (including Juicy Couture, Stila Cosmetics, Lord & Taylor and many more!) continued to blow me away with their generosity. But above all, it was an unique experience to meet other Her Campus writers from around the country. Below are some highlights from the amazing day!
The Her Campus AU girls with Seventeen’s editor-in-chief Ann Shoket!
1. Free Chipotle
I’ll admit it. I have a Chipotle problem. When I found the restaurant chain would be there to provide a free lunch I got extremely excited to much on burritos during conference events. And much to my surprise, every attendee got a gift card for a free meal in their swag bags. Chew on that!
2. Workshops
Because the nature of the Her Campus is that all work is done online or just with your campus, it was great to meet with the founders and learn about writing skills and content management. I felt like I learned so much after listening to the experts reveal insights as to how they built the site and the message they hope to send to readers. Plus, Annie Wang showed the very first images of Her Campus and I was blown away by their vast improvements!
3. Meeting Collegiettes
Before the conference was announced, I had just assumed I would never meet the founders and other writers because of the obvious distance. However, putting a face to a name was a great experience at the conference. I met girls from Her Campus University of Southern Florida, Boston College and George Washington as a start. Meeting girls that work for the same site was fun because we had common ground— and we were able to throw ideas off of each other. Very cool!
4. Speakers
I have heard a lot of speakers tell stories about their professional work, but never before had I been so blown away by their sincerity. Listening to women working in PR, marketing and magazine journalism and asking about their responsibilities made the working world more life like. The networking opportunities after each panel were personal and extensive. The speakers really made the event because they empowered women and gave everyone a great perspective on their careers.
5. Giveaways
I have never seen so many bags personalized and beautifully put together at a conference before! Her Campus has the best sponsors, and it really showed this past weekend. I won a pair of earrings and others won books, bags, beach chairs and someone even got a laptop! Free swag is always amazing, and I’m sure we will be getting some this year at American (that’s what Welcome Week’s for…right?).
Overall the conference was a ton of fun and a unique experience to meet other writers from across the country while learning so much about the field of communications. Fingers crossed for another meet-up next summer!
Check out our photos from the first-ever National Intercollegiette Conference on Facebook.
We met HC co-founder Annie Wang!