As my senior year comes to a close, I’ve been looking back on everything I’ve experienced in the past four years. After being sent home during spring break of our freshman year and spending our sophomore year isolating from each other, the class of 2023’s college experience has been anything but normal. I was lucky enough to study abroad in Paris my junior spring (and will gladly bring it up in any conversation), but because of that, it’s my final year of college and also my first real spring on campus. Throughout these four chaotic years, though, HCBU has been a constant in my life.
Four years ago, I came to BU absolutely terrified to be 1,000 miles away from home in Tennessee. I jumped with excitement when I saw the pink Her Campus booth at Splash and proudly told the girls at the table I had mentioned Her Campus in my “Why BU” essay.
Starting as a writer my freshman fall, I loved having Her Campus both as motivation to write something every week and also as a foundational community on campus — as cheesy as it sounds, my transition to college would’ve been 10 times harder without HCBU.
As I started as an editor my freshman spring, I quickly fell in love with the editorial process. Figuring out the quirks of the AP Stylebook and applying the Her Campus Style Guide to each article felt like solving a satisfying puzzle. And, as an added perk, I got to read my writers’ articles every week, watching as their writing grew and improved over the course of the semester and applying their advice and recommendations to my own life.
I was so inspired by the people I met through Her Campus my first year that I decided to take COM 101 (the introduction course for BU’s College of Communication). Soon enough, I realized storytelling and communicating could actually be my career, and I was filling out the Intra-University Transfer Form and switching to a media science major.
I was honored to get to start as a senior editor for HCBU’s writing team my sophomore spring. In this role, I have proudly read hundreds of articles (literally, I have read every article we’ve posted since February 2021), edited thousands of comma splices (I don’t have proof for this statistic, but I feel like it’s true), and sent out over 50 “Hey, everyone!” messages (originally on Facebook and now on Slack).
While I haven’t written very much (or at all) since taking on this role, I’ve been constantly inspired by all of the amazing people here at BU and in Her Campus. Four years later, I can happily say I have no regrets about coming to Boston, and my “Why BU” essay answer would be the exact same (although I am not a history major like 17-year-old Grace anticipated).
If even one future BU student is reading this with nervous anticipation for college, take my advice: join Her Campus.
Signing off for the last time — Grace.
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