Before this summer I had only attended one other conference and that was right here at Rutgers! You can read about that experience here . Since joining Her Campus and getting emails about everything going on in the community I found out there was an upcoming conference. I didn’t know what to quite expect but from past years’ information on the website I got an idea. With the help of my wonderful brother I bought a ticket and decided to go for it. I was going to be dedicating about two 8 hour days, so my entire weekend. I was working a full-time internship in the city already and so for that week I was day in and day out. This was however, one of the best experiences of my life! In preparing for the conference I set up a Facebook group chat to connect many of the attendants who were first timers or were going alone and wanted to connect prior to. Of about 50 members maybe about 8 of us actually connected and met up the day prior to the conference. In this small meetup, there were people from as far as Illinois and Florida to as close as Brooklyn. Tired after a day of venturing to museums, central park, and downtown for the famous DŌ, we headed home for a good night’s rest as the next day would be an early and busy one.
Eagerly some of us arrived early and lined up to check-in. The location was spacious but with so many of us looked like the walls might not hold us. Upon receiving our badges and venturing to our floor we were greeted by smiling faces who handed us our first bag of goodies. A tote filled with surprises and a wonderful notebook to note our inspirations from the weekend. Next, into the Ulta, Bedhead, and Brit + Co station. Here, you could receive hair and beauty makeovers, take professional headshots, enter into contests, and snap up cute pictures using the modern photo booths. The next area included the HCXO shop and giveaways selections. By posting on social media and tagging the various brands you could earn “social currency” and use it to enter into an array of raffles. Next, came the munching area, there were drinks of all kinds, snacks, and food. It was so hard to stay away, it was like your whole foods meets hipster mom & pop food store, except everything was FREE!
I could lead you through every following minute but you’d probably lose track of time as I know I certainly did, so I’ll give you my favorite highlights. Let me preface by saying all their speakers and guests were absolutely amazing and inspiring, in fact the whole event carried this air of inspiration and motivation. From a quick audience survey, we found out there were 500+ people in attendance and as far as Argentina and Norway! Our speakers were some very powerful and wonderful women from the women’s march, Popsugar, how to get away with murder, Pretty Little Liars, Fox News, and Muslim girl. These women spoke about the obstacles they’ve faced in their professional and personal lives and incited a sense of activism and empowerment in all of us. For the guest panelists who had their own breakout sessions, they were a plethora of backgrounds and experiences. There truly was something for everyone. I personally attended the blogging 101, writing a book, being a financial grownup, startup knowledge, and the so popular how to live your big life. Every single session left you energized and with a sense of belonging and desire to get out there accomplish all your goals and more! These were all women from different backgrounds with different experiences and they all somehow managed to relate to us another crowd of diverse origins. I’d never felt so connected to a crowd. Best of all you could truly tell how much everyone supported one another from pleasantries exchanged when getting our food to the networking that occurred on every corner. I know what’s your mind, what about those goodies I gushed about earlier? Well, here’s one thing I’ve learned in my short time with Her Campus, we don’t play when it comes to the goods. Our amazing sponsors provided full-size products of highly coveted brands and were more than generous with the quantity of goods we received. And that initial day bag of goodies was certainly not the end as the next day we received yet another bag! All in all, the experience was like no other and you can be sure I will be attending Her Conference every year, make sure I see you there too!