Why HCWM is a column we started that answers a simple question: Why did our team members join HCWM? Why do they love working with HerCampus? Why do they stay with HCWM? Today we’re hearing from Harper Yi, Class of 2015 and Editor-In-Chief.
Last year was my first year at W&M, and there were so many great clubs and organizations to join—it was pretty overwhelming. While on the one hand, there are tons of great things I wanted to do, I knew that tons of people found themselves burned out because they jumped into too many things before they got a firm footing at college. I decided that I’d only join clubs if I could think of more than two good reasons why I should join. If I couldn’t think of at least three reasons to join, there wasn’t enough there to justify the amount of time and energy I’d put toward it.
I found a lot of great reasons to join HerCampus W&M. HerCampus is a great way for me to keep on writing. It also put my name out there as a writer, and there were tons of opportunities on the team in writing, and more on the business side of things. I found that I could try out a lot of things, be creative, and make friends with girls I never would have hung out with before. I found that I loved working with HerCampus and it became a big part of my life. I found a lot of motivated, fun girls to hang out with and an amazing role model and mentor in Dylan, the President/CC I worked under.
I tried my hand at most everything—writing, social media, even video. I was given the opportunity to organize the first ever HerCampus InterCollegiette Conference—which was a hard-fought, but turned out amazing. I got the chance to really get to know some of the girls I had never worked with before, and the conference was amazing, inspiring, and a total and complete success thanks to all the hard work everyone put in. Shortly thereafter, I was told I’d working with two amazing seniors (Gabrielle and Abbey) to lead the group this year as a part of the Executive Team, serving as Editor-In-Chief!
HerCampus isn’t just for people who want to be journalists and writers—I worked on the social media team, and served as an event coordinator. Having HCWM on my resume helped me get a paid internship this summer at Gannett, a Fortune 500 Company, best known as the media corporation that owns USAToday, CareerBuilder.com, Cars.com and more, working in marketing, the field I hope to work in someday.
I won’t say that my experience with HCWM was a typical one, but I absolutely believe that in this club, we truly find ourselves being praised in our successes and our hard work recognized. HCWM is my sisterhood, my outlet, and my career network. I have made great friends, and produced some great work. HerCampus shaped a wonderful freshman year for me, and I look forward to continuing on with HerCampus—my creative outlet, my job, and honestly, my family.