Opinion Section Columnist Application

The Spectator accepts columnist applications from students at any school affiliated with Columbia University, including graduate schools. Columns are published every two weeks and writers are expected to edit with a deputy opinion page editor before publication. Deadlines will be strictly enforced.

Please type your answers to these questions and e-mail the finished document to opinion@columbiaspectator.com. The final deadline is July 4. Early applications are encouraged.

Please include a phone number with your application.

1. What do you want your beat to be? What makes you qualified to cover it, and why is it important for the Spec to cover it? In other words, why should readers be interested in what you’re saying, and why should you be the one to say it?

2. While we address many issues of national and international importance, the Spectator’s primary role as a newspaper is to examine the problems and hot topics on campus. As a columnist, how will your beat relate to the Columbia community? If you can, name one or two issues, events, etc. that occurred on campus last year that would fall under your beat.

3. Keeping up a 900-word column every two weeks can be challenging in the midst of a busy semester. What makes you think you're capable of handling it? It is also difficult to consistently come up with creative ideas. Please give five fleshed-out column ideas. (More than five welcome)

4. Who are some of your major influences, relevant to this column? (Including but not limited to writers, thinkers, politicians, teachers—anyone who helped you develop the ideas you hope to express or the way you hope to share them.)

5. What other student organizations are you involved in and in what capacity?

6. Please attach a full-length (900 words) sample column. Please take this question seriously—we would like to see the quality of work you intend to publish. This sample must be wholly original and may have not been previously published.