Welcome back, Kenyon!
We were so excited to see your smiling faces at the Involvement Fair on Saturday, but as we professed the virtues of student journalism to flocks of soon-to-be Collegian staff writers, we were met with a few troubling refrains: “I don’t write.” “I’m a STEM major.” “Journalism isn’t my thing.”
While we certainly understand being apprehensive about trying something new (we were new once, too!), writing something off because it’s outside your comfort zone cheats you out of the opportunity to grow as a writer, student and person. To that end, we want to remind you — journalism is not just for humanities majors!
It may feel natural to assume that the pages of the Collegian are made up entirely of overzealous English majors supplementing their coursework with some extra nonfiction practice, but we can promise that what makes our publication such a great document of Kenyon history is the fact that students from all across campus — from the science quad to the English quad and back again — contribute to writing, editing and designing the paper each week.
As a staff, we care deeply about bringing people together over the shared project of the Collegian. So, if you “don’t write,” don’t study a writing-heavy discipline or don’t think journalism is “your thing,” we challenge you to pick up a story and give it a try!
If you’re a STEM major, we super duper extra want to hear your voice. We love our Collegian team, but we’re very humanities-heavy. Your experience solving math problems, analyzing data sets, writing lab reports and conducting research gives you a fresh perspective that has often been underrepresented in our pages. Previous writers, editors and even editors-in-chief during our time at Kenyon have been STEM majors, and have benefited from the writing experience almost as much as we’ve benefited from having them on staff!
Furthermore, there are plenty of majors that don’t fall into the rigid “reading-and-writing” versus “hard science” binary, and each one has something unique to offer the Collegian. Film? Your sense of pacing will help you craft a compelling article. (Hello, three-act structure!) Economics? We’d love your analysis of Kenyon’s ever-climbing tuition fees. Environmental studies? Educate the student body about the carbon footprint of Peirce coffee cups.
Journalism is a diverse field, and there’s a reason that the Collegian doesn’t have an application for staff writers. There is no “right” way to write an article, and there is no “right” personality or major or skill set that makes you a journalist. So please, no matter who you are, consider penning an article or two.
Sincerely,
Sacha, Dorothy and Micah
The staff editorial is written weekly by Editors-in-Chief Sacha Franjola ’26 and Dorothy Yaqub ’26 and Executive Director Micah Arenstein ’26. You can contact them at franjola1@kenyon.edu, yaqub1@kenyon.edu and arenstein1@kenyon.edu.