Stephanie Neri's Media Participation Project

As soon as we were assigned the media participation project, I knew that I wanted to get involved with the type of medium that interests me the most- magazines. Ever since I was younger I have always taken an interest in magazines, specifically fashion magazines. When I discovered that Unwind Magazine, the University's entertainment news magazine, specialized in writing about entertainment, health, style, sports, enterprise and campus life, I knew it was the perfect fit.

First, I needed to contact the editors of Unwind. Since I was unable to attend the general meetings due to my late night class schedule, I emailed Amanda Eisenberg, one of the co-editors in chief, to set up a meeting. We met in Knight Hall on a Thursday afternoon to discuss how I can contribute to this magazine. She was very easy-going and left it completely up to me as to what I wanted to write about. With an interest in fashion and the recent death of a legendary fashion designer, I decided to write a tribute article about Oscar de la Renta. Amanda loved the idea and gave me a strict deadline with a word count of 600 words. I was informed to email her my final article by no later than the next day, Friday October 24th at midnight. 

I immediately felt pressured after the meeting. In the past, I had written several articles for my high school newspaper but I never had a precise time limit like this. I started to get to work as soon as I could. On the walk back to my apartment, I began interviewing students of different age groups to see what they had to say about the huge loss the fashion industry underwent. Before writing the article, I researched everything I needed to know about Oscar de la Renta. When it came time to finally write the article, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be because I was actually interested in the life this so called "fashion genius" lived. I discovered that it's actually easier to write about something you enjoy. I was able to incorporate the student interviews I previously conducted and pulled my article together relatively quick. I attached some pictures along with the final article and sent it to Amanda just in time. 

Before completing this project, I knew that I wanted to write for a magazine in the future and after writing for Unwind Magazine, it just reaffirmed my desire to work in the fashion magazine industry. Although it is a very fast-paced, overwhelming and time consuming career choice, there was no better feeling than seeing my name with my article in the magazine once it was published. I hope to write for Unwind Magazine again sometime in the near future. 

https://unwindumd.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/remembering-oscar-de-la-renta/