As many first-year students begin searching through hundreds of clubs and extra curriculars to join, it can be intimidating to know where to begin. However, there is a place for everyone at the University of Connecticut. Whether it be music, sports, crafts or game clubs, everyone will find a group or organization that suits them. If you are a creative person who loves to write, photograph, illustrate, design, edit or just collaborate with others, consider joining The Daily Campus!
The Daily Campus is UConn’s independent, student run newspaper, and there are tons of opportunities to get involved, no experience required. The Daily Campus has four main written sections: news, life, sports and opinion. The news section covers events on campus and breaking news that impacts the UConn community. In the life section, writers can choose to cover art-related campus events, write reviews on music albums, movies and tv shows, or talk about anything revolving campus life. The sports section provides coverage and analysis on every UConn athletic team and features columns that cover professional sport teams. Lastly, our opinion section focuses on argumentative writing and is a place to make your voice heard.
The newspaper has more than just writing. We have photo and art sections that focus on creating media and images to accompany stories. We often send our photographers to cover UConn sporting events, such as the men’s basketball national championship last year, and our artists illustrate drawings for written pieces and create logos for columnists.
Our six sections meet weekly on Sunday evenings. Opinion is at 5 p.m., News is at 6 p.m., Life is at 7 p.m., Sports is at 8 p.m., and our photo and art sections meet at 10 p.m. Meetings take place at the Daily Campus on 1266 Storrs Road, next to Moes and Buckley in Downtown Storrs. The art section meets virtually through Discord.
In addition to our six content departments, we are creating a social media section too. This section will be responsible for producing creative projects for our social media platforms. We are hoping to launch this section in early October, so stay tuned!
All sections offer the opportunity for students to get compensated for their work. Each section has staff writers/photographers/artists who get paid for their work each week. All section contributors start as unpaid, but once you develop experience, you can apply for paid content contributing roles.
Another way to get involved is through our production team, which is responsible for preparing the paper for print and digital publication Monday through Friday each week. Copy editors review all articles for grammar and AP Style, designers create layouts for print editions, digital producers upload content to our website and photo producers select which graphics will accompany the articles. For those interested in an early morning shift, we have delivery drivers to distribute the paper to various locations around campus. Production and delivery driver roles are hired on a semester basis, so keep an eye out for those applications.
If you are interested in getting involved, come visit us at the involvement fair today on Fairfield Way from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. We are having an DC Open House on Sunday, Sept. 8 from 2 pm to 4 pm at the Daily Campus Building. Come out to learn what the Daily Campus has to offer, get a tour of the building, and join a fun and fulfilling community. Hope to see you there!