To the editor,

It’s not uncommon for college students to feel lost in the abyss of the “activities fair.” It’s chock-full of plastic stand-up tables with flimsy structural integrity. The volume of the event is absolutely absurd — just imagine about 400 hundred students speaking at once. Activities fairs only confirm you enter each year with an identity crisis: Is this the year I become a water polo star? Maybe this is the semester where I’ll finally learn how to knit while simultaneously improving my David Bowie repertoire on the clarinet.

Fear not, lost students – among the countless rows of tables where your peers are relentlessly persuading you to write your email down, there happens to be the perfect place for you, no matter who you are: the student-run newspaper, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, why would I dedicate extra time to the newspaper without compensation when that time could be spent inhaling food at Berkshire Dining Commons or maybe even writing a paper for class? Well, here’s where your thoughts are misguided about the perks of writing for your school paper.

First and foremost, if you write for The Collegian, you’re going to become a stronger writer. It doesn’t matter if you’re pursuing a degree in management or even in dance, writing is going to be an essential determinant that affects how future employers and networking connections perceive you. When 64 percent of hiring managers are now throwing resumes and cover letters out if there is even just one spelling error, you may want to invest your time in an activity that will prepare you for your future. Not only will your writing improve, but the speed at which you can engineer an article, or any piece of writing, will increase simultaneously – so much so that those tedious short writing assignments professors haphazardly dish out will not feel like so much of a drag.

Secondly, regardless of if you’re a journalism major or not, you’re building a portfolio of your published work at The Collegian. Writing for The Collegian carries far more weight than a simple blog post because of the standards the newspaper holds itself to through the Associated Press guidelines. Your work will not only be validated by your peers and coworkers, but it will also be validated by the wide audience it reaches, such as students, professors and even international readers. Yet another silver lining behind publishing your own writing is that you are able to write about almost whatever you feel inclined to. This is special because your published work speaks to you as a person and allows for employers to see more than just a simple resume. Whether your interests are on how to inoculate mushrooms or why the University of Massachusetts should allocate more funding to the football team, The Collegian is your place to talk about it.

Aside from improving your skills by joining the newspaper, you also enter into a community. Within one newsroom, there are many students with a myriad of interests that range from niche arts and living subjects to knowing every defensive end in the National Football League. Regardless of your interests and respective section you write for, your newsroom becomes your home. Between spending late hours editing and writing, attending countless pitch meetings and playing rounds of wall basketball, the bond amongst the writers becomes undeniable. The Collegian community is a failsafe way to create friendship and lifetime network connections through colleagues, advisory staff and alumni.

Through and through, joining your school’s newspaper will indefinitely help you in your future, both in your career and in your development as a person. As cliché as it may sound, your writing is part of something far larger than you. What you choose to write about may bring light to subjects no one has considered, and it may even personally impact everyday readers.

Morgan Reppert

Opinion and Editorial Assistant Editor

The Massachusetts Daily Collegian