<p>I was just wondering if anyone has had personal experience or knows of someone who does of working on the Crimson. </p>
<p>Is it difficult to get on the newspaper staff? Is it a cut-throat place? </p>
<p>(I picture in my head Rory working frantically on Yale's newspaper staff .. but my friend at Princeton who writes for the Daily Princetonian says it's not like that at all).</p>
<p>I've been on the editorial board of The Crimson since my freshman year. It's difficult to get onto the staff in the sense that the requirements you need to fulfill are time-consuming, but not competitive (i.e. there are generally no "cuts" made during the comp process). It's when you're going for higher positions on the staff (content editing positions, higher positions on the business, design boards, etc.) that things are really competitive and some might say "cutthroat."</p>
<p>yay i <3 gilmore girls :)</p>
<p>are most people vying for those higher positions of a particular concentration or general academic area (ie humanities) at harvard?I don't have any experience with school newspapers, and I don't intend on being an english major or a creative writing major or whatever, but if I go to harvard I would like to get involved with the crimson.</p>
<p>from what I've read, most of the crimson's staff have no intention of going into journalism; my friend at princeton said the same thing about the staff there as well.</p>
<p>thanks caramelkisses06 for the insight. I'm not planning to be a journalism concentrator but I'd love to write for the newspaper. how many hours per week would a regular staffer put in, approximately?</p>
<p>Good thing you aren't planning to be a journalism concentrator since there is no such concentration.</p>
<p>People from a variety of different concentrations and academic areas are involved in The Crimson - that type of thing really has no bearing at all on how much someone is able to be involved with the newspaper or what positions they're able to attain. Economics concentrators, pre-med people, History & Literature concentrators, Social Studies, etc ... plenty of people in these areas have taken on executive roles. Also, people who had no previous newspaper experience in HS or anywhere - like me - are also able to take on higher positions. It's all about what you do once you get to the newspaper, not what you did in high school or what you're studying.</p>
<p>The number of hours a regular staffer puts in varies greatly by which board you're on and also how great of a commitment you want to make to the newspaper. It's really all up to you. Hope that helps :)</p>
<p>I am interested in doing some movie critics and was wondering if the Crimson was involved with anything like that.</p>
<p>I echo what caramelkisses said. Nusi: If you write for the Arts board, they run movie reviews (you get to attend for free!). </p>
<p>News board comp is a lot of work, but as someone else noted, it's not competitive. The comp averages out to about an article a week or so (though you work at your own pace) and there a few random homework assignments and weekly one hour seminars. It's nice that all the work you produce will be used for the actual paper, though be forewarned, editors are not afraid to completely rewrite your piece. ;)</p>
<p>I'm interested in writing for the Crimson too. I'm glad to see it's not as elitist as I thought.</p>
<p>could you guys use another sports writer? i write for my school newspaper right now (never had a higher position. just liked writing).</p>
<p>My friend at Harvard said it's pretty intense; that you are given article assignments at 9pm or some time at night that might be due the next morning. True?</p>
<p>Well, it is a daily newspaper so when a story breaks today, it kind of has to be published by the next day. At least for daily news stories, the turnaround is pretty quick. On the other hand, if you're writing for a content board say like Arts or the FM, the magazine, you'll generally have more time with longer features and reviews where there is less of a timeliness issue.</p>
<p>Depends. Arts, Sports, FM publishes weekly inserts. Relatively casual, weekly assignments. News has to publish every weekday. It's certainly what you want to make of it. One of my blockmates loves writing, she wants to be journalist, she's written like 25 articles so far as a freshman. It's tough. But if you devote lots of time to the Crimson, you'll, at least, make associate editors. Realize that everyone at Harvard's a great writer I've noticed. All my roommates can crank out essays in minutes. I'm one of the few rather inarticulate ones, and I'm also taking a full year of expository writing compared to one semester for most folks.</p>