This year’s Her Campus team seeks to redefine stereotypical notions of femininity. We aim to create a safe space for women of all backgrounds to share their experiences and their emotions, their struggles and their successes, and to nurture a community of intelligent women who lift one another up.
When we stumbled upon Her Campus (which came to UCL in 2019) we saw an immense amount of potential in it. Female empowerment is at the heart of the Her Campus philosophy, and in times as difficult as these, we feel twice as passionate about cultivating the power we know it holds. This year, we’re choosing to use the unique circumstances and events that have made up 2020 to our advantage. Even in this time of social distancing and isolation, we hope that our unique experiences and perspectives can bring us closer together, not pull us further apart. This magazine is a culmination of just that, a coming together of everyone and anyone who is looking for a place to express themselves. Now that we have had time to adjust to the new normal of virtual work and correspondence, we have adapted several of the paper’s goals this year, especially in terms of content.
We hope to bring a more political slant to our output this year (as many of us feel strongly about such issues) whilst maintaining a balance between this and some of our more whimsical and light-hearted content, bringing you every aspect of what it means to be a college woman today. We want to share our experiences with you and hopefully learn more about the vibrant community of women around us along the way.
We want to deviate from Eurocentrism in the political aspect of our paper and enable our BAME students to voice their struggles. We hope to highlight and address the microgaggressions UCL students face everyday, as women, as people of colour, as members of the LGBTQ+ community and as members of the differently-abled community. We strive to create advice columns and guides that enable women to find vocational support as we enter another recession. We hope to start conversations about mental health and wellbeing, in our UCL community and beyond. We will ensure that we listen to each and every member of our team; whether they’re a part of our Executive Board, contributing as a freelance writer or have simply signed up to join our community of clever, creative and determined women, we will make sure to account for everyone. The uber-talented ladies on our team have and will be working harder than ever to bring you a magazine we can all be proud of.
This year at Her Campus we will be strengthening our connections with other societies throughout the year (starting with the UCL Justice Collective and Women in Finance) and hosting events with some really exciting speakers (most of which will take place virtually). We are aiming to make these events as accessible as possible, and hope they will address the concerns we all have, from the anxieties that come with living in a constantly changing world, to the endless possibilities the future may hold.
Her Campus UCL 2020-21 will be your daily dose of pop culture, political awareness and, most importantly, the stories that matter to us. We can’t wait to bring you on this journey to create a thriving and empowered community of women here at UCL!