Student blogger Aisha Oredegbe hopes that Her Campus will bring students together.

Creative expression can help students have a more meaningful university experience, but it is often missing from students’ busy lives. With the launching of online magazine Her Campus, students at the University of Saskatchewan will have a new platform to share their stories and ideas creatively.

The student-run online magazine Her Campus, which was started as a business project by two students at Harvard University, has chapters at over 300 college and university campuses across nine countries. On Jan. 24, the magazine will open its new chapter at the U of S. The magazine will focus on university women and will include articles about beauty, love, health, career advice, news and plenty of other topics.

Aisha Oredegbe, third-year physiology and pharmacology major, is the organizer of the U of S chapter of Her Campus. She spoke to the Sheaf about how the magazine came to the U of S.

“I run my own personal blog and I have been running it for the past two or three years and it’s been pretty successful, so it was through there that I got contacted by [Her Campus] and they basically said, ‘You’re a female college student, you’re a blogger so this is not something necessarily new to you, you like to write and you go to the U of S, where we don’t have a chapter. Would you be interested in starting one?’” Oredegbe said.

At first, Oredegbe was not sure that she would go through with starting the magazine, but she quickly changed her mind after speaking to her classmates about it.

“I started talking to a couple people, and I saw that there was a real desire. People love to share their stories. For me, the joy has been finding that I seek solace in writing and expressing myself through writing, so to have the opportunity to provide a platform to everyone in the U of S to be able to do so is rewarding,” Oredegbe said.

The magazine receives article submissions from students who want to have their voices heard. Articles can be submitted through the Facebook page for Her Campus Usask or by email to usask@hercampus.com. Oredegbe is hoping to explore a variety of different perspectives through the articles she will publish.

“Our content generally focuses on targeting the female audience at the U of S; however, we do not discriminate by gender or race, sexuality or orientation, for publishing the work of individuals,” she said. “We want to hear particularly from the college students, because this is an online magazine that is going to be read by college students themselves.”

The content itself is so varied that there is something there for everyone. While a lot of the articles are fun and entertaining, Oredegbe believes there is a balance with important issues as well.

“It can be a bit serious. Some of the articles that are going to be going up target issues that are underlying or apparent at our university campus,” she said. “There was an article written about social media and how it is changing the way we’re interacting with each other. It’s really interesting and it’s definitely a perspective that we don’t all think about.”

Oredegbe believes that this kind of platform will bring different kinds of students together and create an understanding among students that she feels has been lacking.

“I think it’s especially important in the U of S because there is a diversity at the U of S among students that is not necessarily highlighted in the news, and I feel like that’s part of the issue with a lot of prejudice and lack of understanding that we have amongst each other,” Oredegbe said. “I think that through writing and creative content we can see each other for what we do rather than what we look like or who we associate with. It’s a good way to unify all of us and I think that is something that we don’t have at the U of S.”

—

Lyndsay Afseth

Photos: Aisha Oredegbe / Supplied