Her Success: Stephanie Kaplan and ‘Her Campus’

As a writer for my school’s branch of Her Campus, I had the pleasure to interview Stephanie Kaplan, the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor-in-chief. Her Campus is an online magazine for college women, or “collegiettes,” a term Her Campus coined. According to Kaplan, Her Campus is different from any online magazine since it “provides national and local brands. We are the only national magazine that provides different content for college women.”
The national branch provides sections on love, style, life, career, health and beauty. Each section has its own special sub-sections, for instance, love has the popular columnist “My Gay Best Friend,” who provides relationship and dating advice for struggling collegiettes. The college branch sections include news, blog, campus celebrity, photoblog and campus cutie.
I have been writing for my school’s branch for a year. Her Campus is a great way for any writer to express his creativity and have fun with his writing.
Kaplan received her bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in economics from Harvard University. She told me she had a passion for writing journalism, but since Harvard does not offer a journalism program, she majored in psychology. However, her passion continued well into her undergraduate career when she worked on the staff of Freeze, Harvard’s lifestyle and fashion magazine. Freeze was also an inspiration for Her Campus.
Her Campus launched when she won the Harvard’s i3 Innovation Challenge with colleagues, Windsor Hanger and Annie Wang. The i3 Innovation Challenge is the business plan competition where Her Campus was proposed in January 2009.
Besides Freeze, Kaplan interned at Seventeen magazine. Her inspiration for publishing is Cathleen Black, president of Hearst magazine. Kaplan’s experience at Seventeen taught her how to run a magazine and how to control, promote your brand across different platforms. Today, Her Campus has a partnership with Seventeen.
Kaplan’s passion and drive are inspirational for me, and hopefully other aspiring writers. Her advice? “Just find platforms to start writing for to get published. Her Campus is a great place to start.” Additionally, she mentioned within the Jewish community, networking is important, such as getting involved with Hillel, Chabad and the Jewish Alumni Network.
To expand her own platform with Her Campus, Kaplan plans to continue building sales, increasing traffic into the millions and expanding to other campus chapters.
Kaplan uses the slogan, “A collegiette’s guide to life” to sum up Her Campus. It certainly is.

The writer is a current JewliciousU intern and a student at the University of California, Irvine.

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1. Meet and greet: UCI Hillel program director Rebecca Goldberg