Her Campus Comes to Ramapo

by mmattia | October 17, 2013 8:30 am

By MICHELE MATTIA

Ramapo College recently launched  a chapter of Her Campus, an online college magazine directed to female audiences.

Two students, Angel Branco and Elina Tarkazikis, founded the chapter at Ramapo and have congregated  a volunteer group of staff writers on campus that write weekly articles, ranging from Greek life, to healthy options on campus and even special student profiles for the site.

Branco, one of Her Campus at Ramapo’s co-founders said that she originally applied to write for the website, thinking that it was an internship she would solely be contributing to, but later found out that she would be the head of an entire chapter’s site.

“My roommate showed me a website sophomore year called Ed2010.com.  It’s all about internships at different magazines, fashion companies and stuff like that,” said Branco, 19.  “I applied thinking, ‘Oh it’s going to be a traditional internship going into an office in the city’ and it turned into being something completely different.”

There were three original founders[1] of Her Campus’ main site, Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger and Annie Wang, while they were all undergraduates at Harvard.  The site launched in Fall of 2009 and according to the Her Campus’ About page,, the site has created content partnerships with companies such as Seventeen Magazine, Glam.com, The Huffington Post and USA Today.  The site draws in over 1 million monthly unique visitors, according to Drupal.org.

According to the official site, Her Campus’ mission is to be “the leading multi-platform brand in the female college space, cultivate an interactive community of female college students and serve their unique set of needs, provide a career launching point for the nation’s top college journalists, and to connect marketers with the coveted college demographic in innovative ways, both online and offline.”

“Total enrollment figures show that females outnumbered their male counterparts for the first time in the late 1970s, and they have steadily increased their numerical advantage ever since,” according to Forbes.com[2].  Females dominate males enrolled at Ramapo specifically, the composition being 58 percent female. compared to 42 percent male, in a study by College Board[3].

Her Campus stands as a unique website[4] since it is totally composed by 3,000+ writers and some of the best college journalists contributing daily.  Some of the topics include Style, Health, Beauty, Career, Love and Life along with 200+ campuses, Ramapo now one of them, supporting local content relevant to readers from particular schools.  Some other features of the site include daily newsletters, giveaways and various social media communities.

Students such as sophomore writing major Jessica Ihle benefit from writing for Her Campus since the site allows for female students in particular to express topics and ideas relevant to going through the everyday life as a college student.

“I want to write for a magazine like Seventeen, and I felt like this was pretty similar so I wanted to join to gain some experience and also write about things I enjoy!” said Ihle.

[5]

Her Campus Hype Begins at Ramapo

Ramapo’s Her Campus[6] page may be brand new, but there are already many eager students who have written articles for the site.  Some of the topics on Ramapo’s Her Campus chapter page include News, Celebrities, Campus Cuties, a Campus Style Blog and Events.

Twenty-one year old Ramapo College senior Nicole Ramirez found out about Her Campus at Ramapo when she saw a Facebook group posting looking for writers and decided to contact the founding members

“I got involved because I wanted to write about fitness and nutrition since that is the field I want to go into so I thought this was a good way to start without so much pressure. I heard about it from my friend who actually runs it at Montclair so it always seemed pretty good to do. I think I’m going to gain more experience in writing and on how to grab an audience and make people interested,” said Ramirez.

Although there are a variety of articles about general college interest topics, such as joining Greek life and decorating dorm rooms, there are also areas of the site that highlight Ramapo College in particular, such as coverage of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie visiting the school and profiles of various campus “celebrities.”

Her Campus at Ramapo has also created a Facebook[7] and Twitter[8] to get more readers involved and spread the word on social media.

“It’s going to be really cool and really different to be doing something outside of the box,” said Branco.

Her Campus Hype Begins at Ramapo

Ramapo’s Her Campus[6] page may be brand new, but there are already many eager students who have written articles for the site.  Some of the topics on Ramapo’s Her Campus chapter page include News, Celebrities, Campus Cuties, a Campus Style Blog and Events.

Twenty-one year old Ramapo College senior Nicole Ramirez found out about Her Campus at Ramapo when she saw a Facebook group posting looking for writers and decided to contact the founding members

“I got involved because I wanted to write about fitness and nutrition since that is the field I want to go into so I thought this was a good way to start without so much pressure. I heard about it from my friend who actually runs it at Montclair so it always seemed pretty good to do. I think I’m going to gain more experience in writing and on how to grab an audience and make people interested,” said Ramirez.

Although there are a variety of articles about general college interest topics, such as joining Greek life and decorating dorm rooms, there are also areas of the site that highlight Ramapo College in particular, such as coverage of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie visiting the school and profiles of various campus “celebrities.”

Her Campus at Ramapo has also created a Facebook[7] and Twitter[8] to get more readers involved and spread the word on social media.

“It’s going to be really cool and really different to be doing something outside of the box,” said Branco.

 

Audio Interview with Co Founder, Angel Branco[9]

[Angel Branco, Her Campus at Ramapo co founder, sat down to discuss her founding of the chapter on this campus and a little bit about the website’s content.]

 

Source URL: https://class1.ramaporecord.org/?p=15280

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