Our 3rd Annual Her Campus Mid-Atlantic Conference was on April 19th, and everyone had an absolute blast! It was co-hosted by Her Campus W&M and Her Campus VCU on William & Mary’s campus. We started the day off with some Dunkin’ Donuts and coffee, which were super delicious! Windsor Hanger Western, one of Her Campus’s co-founders, gave the opening speech and encouraged everyone to #pledgeitforward!
During the first breakout session, Isis Briones, the EIC of Selfless Style, spoke to a room of girls about the journey she took as a fashion intern in New York, and how to make it big in the fashion industry. Brittany Lewis, Head of Campus Development at Her Campus, spoke about leadership, female empowerment, and team building. We had three more amazing speakers for the next breakout session: Caroline Rothstein, a freelance writer and body empowerment activist, Anna Umbreit, a W&M Career Counselor, and Kim Waeber, a co-founder of Kidogo Kidogo. We had so much food for our Chipotle networking lunch, and passed out swag bags provided by the Williamsburg Premium Outlets right after! Next, we listened to a panel featuring Brittany Lewis, Peel Hawthorne (Assistant Athletic Director at W&M), Anna Umbreit, Caroline Rothstein, Windsor Hanger Western, and Isis Briones. The panel was extremely insightful, with questions ranging from how to manage a long-distance relationship after college to how to encourage younger girls to start thinking for the future. After our panel, we listened to an inspiring speech from Deidre Connelly, a Sports Psychologist Consultant at W&M.
Some of the main points she made were:
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“Keep the main thing the main thing”
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“Own your own stuff”
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“Don’t do things out of fear”
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“What you have is enough”
After the closing speech, we raffled off some beyond amazing prizes from Retro Daddio, The Shoe Attic, BlueGreenAqua, eff.y.bee jewelry, and more! Memorable moments included raffling off the James Dean poster (“He’s a real hottie!” –Katianna Tron), Dale Lavine (@misterlavine) winning some makeup, Sarah Pentecost (@sarahcues) snapping photos of everyone with their prizes, and the sound of a drumroll every two minutes. Below are some tweets some of our attendees sent out about the conference!
It was an outstanding conference and everyone at Her Campus W&M has already started planning next year’s! To see more memories of the event, search the hashtag #HCMidAtlantic on Twitter and Instagram!