It can be difficult to make new friends in college, especially as a transfer student. A new campus and classes are daunting enough on their own, but then on top of that there is navigating the social scene and seeing what connections you can make. Luckily, that is exactly why every campus has clubs, organizations, and countless other resources to get students to mingle and get to know their peers. Her Campus is one of them!
Her Campus was started in 2009 by three college women named Kaplan Lewis, Annie Wang, and Windsor Hanger Western. They wanted to start an inclusive, supportive community of college womxn to get together and run an online magazine for their respective school’s chapter. This type of community is meant to take this generation of college students and give them a chance to uplift and empower each other.
My personal experience joining HC SF has been nothing short of a dream. I applied during quite an uncertain and transitional time in my life, and unexpectedly on the first day of the quarter, I learned that I was a part of the team. What I love most in SFSU’s chapter is that everyone is heard, respected, and celebrated. We are our own biggest cheerleaders. Our meetings are so much fun (and sometimes filled with ice cream!) thanks to our stellar leadership team, Pearl, Olivia, Michelle, and Yaz. We get vulnerable and silly together simultaneously, and we show up for the publication and the responsibilities that come with it, but also for each other. Our chapter is filled with three separate teams, and you are welcome to choose whatever team you wish to contribute to – or, you can help numerous teams, too, which is what most of us ultimately end up doing one way or another anyways. Writers are responsible for submitting an article each week (recently we have been picking which provided topics we will write about beforehand, however you can choose your own topics with approval, too! The social media team makes our Instagram and TikTok gain as much momentum as possible with cute themes, colors, and graphics – everyone on the entire HC team is welcome to submit photos and graphics through the Google doc. My favorite is getting together with the entire team and seeing what trends and posts we can create together that will get the most views and interactions! Lastly, the events team puts together the most fabulous private and public events to give us all even more reasons to get together and bond. This past quarter, we had game night, as well as an extremely successful bonfire at Ocean Beach that had an amazing turnout.
I am eternally grateful for having crossed paths with everyone in my HC chapter, and getting to know each and every single person more and more with each passing week. I will never get bored of seeing what else we all come up with, and watching both the chapter and all of us, evolve and grow. I know the passion we all bring to the team will never die, and the best part is, knowing that even after we all graduate, we will still be connected forever.
The opinions expressed in this article are the writer’s own and do not reflect the views of Her Campus.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at San Francisco chapter.