The year is 2016. At a Week of Welcome event in the CUB, two freshmen, who became fast friends, partner together to sing “Start of Something New” from the “High School Musical” soundtrack. Little did they know, a year later they would start something new on campus.

Now sophomores, international business major Emily Carson and hospitality business major Irene Rabe are developing HerCampus for WSU.

Carson described HerCampus as an online platform for young women to write stories. There are about 360 chapters globally. She said the organization is a way for women to gain experience in journalism, marketing, public relations and event planning.

Carson said another woman encouraged her to start the chapter.

“I got a [direct message] from a [woman] at another school who runs HerCampus [there] and she told me that she thinks I’d make a good fit,” she said.

Carson was drawn to the organization for leadership reasons and wanted to have the experience of building a community at WSU.

Now the campus correspondent, she works with the international and corporate managers of HerCampus.

To become a campus correspondent, Carson had to fill out a form and complete four rounds of interviews. She said the process is thorough to make sure those selected really want to be involved. Campus correspondents are the only people who have to apply; other members can freely join.

Events Director Rabe plans events, like movie nights or tabling on campus to recruit more members.

The group is open to all female students at WSU, but Carson said it has been most popular among freshmen thus far.

Currently all 15 members write, but Carson said that’s not their ultimate goal. Within the organization, they want to have sub-groups for event planning and PR, too. They hope to get enough interest in the chapter to make this a possibility.

They said the writing commitment they ask for is manageable. Members are asked to write one article per week, and there is a lot of room for creativity and freedom. Carson said the only limitations involve ensuring no one writes the same story or writes something offensive.

Although the writers are all women, they emphasized some of the content is applicable to men. Rabe said an example of this is Carson’s article “5 Ways to Prepare for Winter in Pullman.”

Both women said they have limited experience as writers. Carson acknowledged keeping a fashion and lifestyle blog in high school. Her younger brother took pictures of her outfits for it.

All articles can be found at the HerCampus WSU website, which launched last week. When women create a profile, so readers can easily find articles by specific writers. HerCampus gives women an audience of thousands of people who read their content, while letting them retain the copyright to their work.

“You wrote it, you should get full credit for it,” she said.

The group won’t be added to CougSync until later this week. After that, interested parties can join through CougSync or by reaching out through social media, like Instagram and Facebook. Carson said the meetings are at 4:15 p.m. Thursdays. The meeting place is to be determined.