Student-led journals are an indispensable part of the academic experience on college campuses across the country. They are breeding grounds for creativity, discovery and dialogue, and produce quality publications that can be used to educate and inspire. However, these publications often go underappreciated by most of the student body.
These journals are not particularly hard to find. Almost every department at NYU boasts a student-run journal, review or magazine. If you visit any language department at NYU, for instance, you will likely find two or three physical copies of its journals lying near a resource desk, on a coffee table or proudly displayed on a shelf. The same goes for social sciences, liberal arts and even some STEM departments. Take a look around your own department for a student-led publication, and you will almost certainly find one.
At NYU, these types of publications receive a similar lack of attention as they do at many other schools. During my three years here, NYU hasn’t made any effort to promote its journals to newcomers or transfer students, instead letting that responsibility fall squarely on each the students and the department, most likely because they are student-run, niche and field-oriented. While official university publications are well known and widely circulated, student journals tend to be less so, only circulated among much smaller groups and often not reaching all those who are interested in reading them. This is in stark contrast to NYU’s semesterly promotion of Club Fest, with emails and full coverage on the university’s website and social media, despite the event’s notoriously slapdash nature.
The silent treatment ends this week, as NYU’s Center for Undergraduate Research is hosting the Student Journal Submission Fest this Wednesday, Oct. 9 at Bobst Library. The event will showcase over 30 undergraduate journals out of the numerous publications at NYU. This is the start of what I hope will become a university tradition where students are invited — regardless of major, school or year — to explore these diverse publications.
The main reason the journals tend to stay tucked away in its departments is because they are usually hyper-specialized. I can assure you that for whatever creative itch you might have, there is a publication ready to scratch it. Some of them are incredibly interdisciplinary, covering several genres, diverse topics and languages each semester. And as for the more specialized ones, they would be a perfect read if you are still undecided between, say, philosophy and comparative literature or environmental studies and urban studies.
Journals, in contrast to university newspapers that more broadly focus on university events, provide you with room to explore the intersections of your interests in a high-quality publication. If you’re up for it, this could even be your chance to launch your own student journal to fill any gaps in subject matter.
Joining, starting or running a journal is no small feat — it’s a serious time commitment and can be quite the challenge. Most journals’ workloads are pretty unpredictable, with most going months without heavy activity only to get a flood of submissions at the end of the semester, right when editors are drowning in their own finals. Add to that the yearly search for new editors and peer reviewers, limited funding, self-advertising and the design process, and you have your work cut out for you. It’s not for everyone, but to some people, it’s the dream. So why not give journals the same attention and excitement you’d give a student-run club? If you came to college constantly craving a challenge, joining a journal will undoubtedly bring you that satisfaction.
If you find yourself free this Wednesday between 3 and 5 p.m. — or if you’re headed to Bobst for a heavy study session during this upcoming midterm season — I highly encourage you to swing by room 619. You may just find a new outlet to share your ideas with.
WSN’s Opinion section strives to publish ideas worth discussing. The views presented in the Opinion section are solely the views of the writer.
Contact Polina Belova at [email protected].
