Media Participation Project

For my Media Participation project, I wrote for a campus publication. The publication was Her Campus UMD. Her Campus is a national online magazine that has fun, relatable articles for dealing with life, beauty, hair, health and more written by and for college women. Her Campus has hundreds chapters within itself, which are college and universities across the country. Her Campus UMD is written primarily for college students here at the University of Maryland.

I was interested in writing for Her Campus UMD because it had a magazine-feel to it. My ideal career would be working in the magazine industry, so I thought this would be a great place to start.

In order to become a writer for Her Campus UMD, I had to apply for a position. I filled out an application, sent in my resume, and attached a writing sample for the editors to review. The writing sample was supposed to be written in the voice of a Her Campus writer, casual, fun and relatable.

Once I received note that my application was approved, I met with one of the two editors, Jaclyn, the following week. Jaclyn gave me all the information I needed to write my own articles for Her Campus UMD. I gave her pitch ideas and I got started with my article. Jaclyn also said I could edit and add to my writing sample that I gave her and could use that as my first article. My article was about avoiding the Freshman 15 at UMD. The article consisted of tips and tricks of how to avoid gaining weight in college, but was much more specifically relatable to UMD students. I had about one week to finalize the article before I submitted it. The article was published on October 9.

I am currently writing two more stories to be published for the month of November for Her Campus UMD. I will continue to write for Her Campus UMD throughout the year. I will gain more experience in writing from being a part of this group. I really enjoy the writing style at Her Campus because it is very similar in the kind of writing I hope to pursue a career in eventually. My experience here showed me that I really do want to be a part of the magazine industry in the future.