So, how many students at this university enjoy writing? How many have considered a career in journalism? And, how many are members of Impact? Well, I only know the answer to the final question; Impact has 63 members. That is 63 out of a University population of about 12,000. During my time at university I have always been surprised at how little interest students seem to take in contributing to their newspaper.
There are so many reasons to write for your student newspaper and yet every week the small team of editors has to work increasingly hard to get enough content to fill their sections. However, I do not want this article to turn into a rant about how bad it is that people do not contribute to impact. Doing that would probably be somewhat self-defeating since very few of you would bother to continue reading this and those of you who did would probably read it and think ‘there’s no chance that I’m going to write for that miserable cow’. What I actually want to do is to share with you why I think contributing to impact is a great thing to do.
Firstly I think that a lot of students don’t realise how easy it is to contribute to impact. You can simply write an article and email it in (see the email addresses inside the front page of impact). That’s how effortless it is. You can email in one article and then never have anything to do with Impact again, or you can come to meetings every week, help with proof-reading and laying up and contribute articles to every issue (or, of course, you can have any level of involvement in between). So, reason number one to write for Impact: it’s easy!
Secondly, the newspaper is at its best when its content is varied. You can write about science, travel, politics, your club or society, fashion, sport or anything else. If there’s something you’re interested in, whether it is related to your degree or not, then impact offers a great platform for sharing your view. Why not express your opinion on the great/terrible food available on campus? Or write an article telling the rest of the University why you think BBAs don’t deserve the stick? How about telling people about the great things that your club or society has achieved (perhaps you have had a fundraising event or maybe you could write a match report about your team’s latest victory)? Reason number two to write for Impact: you can get your view/story heard.
Thirdly, believe it or not, writing for Impact can actually be fun. We all have lots of work to do that isn’t necessarily that enjoyable; impact, on the other hand, offers you a chance to write about something that you actually want to write about. And, when you see your article in the paper it can actually be quite a nice moment. Reason number three to write for Impact: it’s fun!
Finally, writing for your student newspaper looks good on your CV. This is not just the case for budding journalists either (although budding journalists should definitely get involved!). There are a variety of careers that require you to be able to communicate your point coherently and to construct arguments, and contributing to impact will illustrate that you have these skills. Reason four to write for Impact: your CV will benefit!
I strongly believe that having a newspaper is an important part of university life, and since there are loads of reasons to write for Impact (only a few of which I have included in this article), I really think more people should do it. It is one of the most worthwhile things that you can do whilst at university, so I really do urge you to get involved and write something. You’ll be helping the paper and helping yourself.
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