By Jessica Booth
Sex advice, celebrity gossip, funny stories, tips to get you through college in one piece-who wouldn’t want to read a website dedicated to all of this and more? Better yet, who wouldn’t want the chance to write for a website like this?
As college students, it’s usually extremely difficult to find a way to get your work published or seen, especially in this economy and especially for journalism majors. Almost every job you apply for after college will require some amount of experience, not to mention the fact that everyone is always looking for a way to stand out from the crowd. Getting a byline by writing for any kind of well-known publication or website is always a plus.
Luckily for female college students, there is now a website that might be able to help out: CollegeCandy.com. We’ve all heard about the ‘end of print journalism.’ Newspapers and magazines are going out the door, according to most experts. Although we may not want it to be true, it seems that journalism is going in that direction. Newspapers and magazines are selling less, while their websites are getting more and more hits.
Everything that a reader could find on paper is now online-along with added features. It is not only easier and faster to look on the Internet for the news, but also cheaper. This is troubling news for everyone, but for journalism majors it is especially troubling. If your heart is set on writing for an actual newspaper or magazine when you graduate, then you need to do some serious work in order to make yourself stand out from the crowd. As print goes out of style, less and less jobs are offered.
This is why it’s not only so important to grab at any chance you can to get a byline as a college student, but also to familiarize yourself with writing for the web. This is where CollegeCandy.com comes in. The website is geared towards female college students who are not only looking for a fun online magazine to read, but who are also looking for a way to write and get their name out there. CollegeCandy is full of small articles and blogs, almost all of which are written by female college students from all over the country.
“The reason it’s different from anything else is that its not written by some 30-year-old woman whose been out of college for eight years, it’s written by a student like you–the girl next to you in class or the girl in the sorority, or the girl down the hall in the dorm,” says managing editor for the website Lauren Herskovic.
Since the site focuses solely on the female college audience, it reads like that also. “The way we write, it’s like we’re talking to you-it’s like your having a conversation with your girlfriends,” says senior print journalism major Amanda Chamberlain. Chamberlain got the opportunity to intern for the website a few months ago.
From there, she started writing for the site and fell in love with it. “It’s a great site to not only visit when your bored, but also if you want to start writing and getting a byline. You don’t have to worry so much about being PC; you can speak your mind. You can really talk and say what you want to say, and not have to worry about pleasing the masses.”
CollegeCandy started out as a magazine called Co-Ed Magazine for about two years in 2005. However, the company soon realized that college students don’t really buy magazines anymore, and so they switched over to the web. An online magazine with plenty to do, CollegeCandy has relationship and love advice, sex stories and tips, news on anything relevant to a student’s life, celebrity gossip and entertainment, style and fashion advice, funny videos and stories that will keep you laughing all day.
Writers talk about everything from politics to what to pack for Spring Break to nasty hangovers. They have interviews with celebrities or other well-known figures, along with advice on finding the perfect bag or the best websites to occupy your free time. Anything you could think you want to know, you can probably find on CollegeCandy.
“We want to create a community where college girls can not only read the articles, but also interact with each other. We want you to be able to come to us and do everything, and not have to search for other sites,” says Herskovic. For anything that has been written or posted on the site, readers can comment on the features and give their thoughts. These comments are never modified; instead students have the chance to say exactly what’s on their minds.
Herskovic’s dream was always to write for Cosmopolitan magazine, but after college she realized just how difficult it was to break into the field. Shortly after, she started working for CollegeCandy and she encourages students to use the site to their advantage.
“Everyone wants to see clips and experience, so this is a huge foot in the door for students who want to get into the industry. They can learn a lot, and in addition, it’s just really fun. It’s really helpful for anyone who is interested in writing to start writing as soon as they can,” she says. “By getting in early and learning how to write for the web, they are going to have such an advantage, especially in this economy.”
For any student who is interested in writing for the site, they can simply click on the ‘contact us’ button on the site, and email the staff. There is a small interview process, and an exchange of some of the students other writings, but according to Herskovic, nine times out of 10 the student is given the chance to write.
“This website is the bomb dot com, and I feel like every girl who reads CollegeCandy falls in love with it,” says Herskovic. “We welcome and embrace every new reader, and we’re just so excited to be growing.”