Hiya friends,
Before I begin getting into this week’s (well actually my LAST EVER article!). I want to begin by saying how much I have loved writing for Her Campus these last two years. I feel so lucky to have been involved in contributing and helping build this empowering community of female writers in this chapter even higher and stronger.
Actually, since 2009 this online community of female writers has been empowering and allowing the space for female college/university students’ voices to be expressed. The initiative began thanks to the great minds of three young Harvard undergraduates Stephanie Kaplan Lewis, Annie Wang and Winsor Hanger Western who began running a student publication for women on their campus. Immediately the publication sky-rocketed with colleges around the US wanting to start up their own publication similar to theirs. As a consequence, Stephanie, Annie and Windsor saw an opportunity to build an online magazine which would provide female college students around the globe the opportunity to participate, contribute and run their own college/university magazine (chapter). In 2009 the three ladies won Harvard’s business plan competition with their Her Campus initiative. Fast-forward 14 years, ever since 2009 the three friends have been building their ambitions and passion with the help and strength of thousands of college women as well as others around the world.
Today ‘Her Campus has amassed the largest female college audience of any publication’.
Since the beginning, Her Campus has kept at its core the sense of empowerment, togetherness and community. Her Campus enables young women at university, as well as others, the ability to discuss and raise topics which are important to them, a platform which encourages female expression and opinions as opposed to the stunting of them (something we have seen and felt so much of in the past and still in the present).
I personally have felt the strong and encouraging environment of Her Campus and this is one of the reasons why I believe so many students want to contribute. In essence, Her Campus to me is a place of nurturing, a place where the mind and the voices of young women are allowed the space to flourish and blossom, by offering them the freedom and scope to explore the power of the written word, their creativity, their minds and as well that of others. Each and every woman’s experience is different and Her Campus nurtures and gives room for this expression and for female diversity to be foregrounded and celebrated.
Our chapter at the University of Nottingham has been running since 2013 (if I am correct) and is it’s strongest and most successful ever! Currently, we have nearly 40 contributors as well as a fully female lead committee!
Although I am only one tiny piece in one ginormous jigsaw, I feel connected and empowered to express my voice through writing through this sense of community and unity present in the magazine. Since joining all the way back at the start of my second year, Her Campus has given me motivation, inspiration, joy, excitement, liberation, self-worth and belief. It may sound cringe to anyone reading, but for me, it has been about so much more than putting words down on a page, it has been about purpose, confidence and discovering my love of expression through writing.
I am a great believer in fate and how I came to begin writing for Her Campus was pure fate (well I am coining it that). Actually, I stumbled across the Her Campus Facebook page back in my second year, completely unaware and oblivious of ‘Her Campus’. Over the past two years, it has carved a special place in my heart, and I have gained so many skills and memories from this opportunity that I shall treasure forever.
For me it is not just a magazine it has come to symbolise so much more to me, being a very normal working-class girl the opportunity and ability for me to express how I feel about the world has been something really amazing. I never would have thought of writing or let alone thinking anyone would read my words and thoughts. No matter who you are, your class, race, ethnicity, or sexual identity, none of that should have a part to play, we all deserve the space to speak and express ourselves freely and safely. This has been something really important that Her Campus has enabled me to realise and enact.
In a world in which everything and everyone seeks to pull down, discourage women from expressing their unique and diverse experiences, their ways of thinking, their opinions and their voice. I believe that Her Campus is a shining example of how to empower and champion young women. It is a space of reclamation, resistance and refreshment.
Her Campus’s success and our progress in our own chapter exemplify the capability, determination and success of young women, especially when they work together.
As I leave this chapter and step into another new chapter of my life, I will take and treasure everything Her Campus has allowed me to see and feel within myself and others.
Well, all that is left to say is thank you Her Campus, for allowing me to see my potential and the endless and uncontainable energy, creativity, intellect, individuality and brilliance of women even more distinctly. I will forever be grateful.
Ta-ra for now loves☺