Club Spotlight: Exie Blog
Exie Blog Logo courtesy of @exieblog
By ELLEN JIN and CHLOÉ LIND
Every Sunday at 11 a.m. in the Elm Street Dining Hall, members of the Exie Blog club pick up brunch and take it up to the Mezzanine for their weekly meeting. A club founded during the Covid pandemic, Exie Blog aims to publish blog articles and social media posts about the Exeter experience. They produce media designed for prospective and fellow students to benefit them and offer advice on how to navigate their journeys at the Academy.
Members describe Exie Blog as a relaxed club with flexible hours, willing to work around students’ busy schedules. They are given lots of creative liberty in how they can contribute to the club by either creating a video for the Exie Blog Instagram or TikTok accounts or writing an article for the club’s own section on Sharepoint.
The club’s productions and outreach are what draw a lot of members in. Lower Sophie Yu, who serves as the Managing Editor, commented on why she first decided to join Exie Blog: “When I was an incoming prep, I didn’t really know anything about campus, but after watching a lot of blogs that were made, I realized that [it] would be such a good opportunity to help more students who are coming in to learn a lot of things about the schools that you really don’t get on a first tour.”
Upper and Executive Director Pranavi Vedula related this desite to pay the advice forward. “I came into Exeter as a new prep, and I spent the summer before my prep year reading lots of Exie Blog articles to get acquainted with life at Exeter. I’ve always been an anxious person, and I was especially nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. Reading the humorous anecdotes of older students put me at ease. I joined Exie Blog because I now want to help incoming Exonians from the other end.”
Lower Shawna Jiang described what kept her interested in the club “Initially it was first my proctor who was the co-head and she sort of made me join it.” She continued “But then afterward, after seeing all the videos and articles that they produced, I wanted to be part of it because when I was reading it, I felt like I was learning a lot from the other students and I just wanted to do that too.”
Media produced by Exie Blog brings positive energy to student life. Lower Olivia Zhang said “What I like most about the club is that it gets a lot of outreach. People talk about it and it gets the community rallied together because of common interests. I think that romanticizing our school in a way really helps students get through the day and we can bring them a little more joy in the process.”
In the spirit of imbuing knowledge and experience, Zhang wishes the club could broaden its community outreach, allowing for even more media and resources for new and returning students alike. Zhang cited the club’s desire for a website, explaining, “We have them on sharepoint but we are currently working on getting our own website up and running to be more accessible to students.”
Yu agrees and believes that this will allow them to increase their impact, become more accessible to students, and hopefully become more mainstream on campus. “One thing we’ve been trying to get [is] a website so that we can market our outreach to more students. Because I feel like a lot of students know us for our video content rather than our actual writing.”
In order to increase community outreach, Jiang touched on the welcoming atmosphere, stating, “It [Exie Blog] is a way to get to know the community better and you can get your voice out there on whatever opinions you want to write about.” Exie Blog is all about creative expression and spotolighing diverse backgrounds and opinions, and many members believe that rich perspectives are a key facet of the club. Zhang commented that, “We have a lot of articles about winter experiences, spring experiences, dorm and things like that. It really helps familiarize the students.” Zhang also noted that the club is trying to get in contact with the admissions office in hopes of making it a larger part of orientation for new students, and also making the responsibilities more engaging for club members.
There are many different roles that one can choose to take on as an Exie Blog club member. For example, Vedula is the executive director of the club and stated, “I normally work on making sure operations are running smoothly. I supervise editors and content creators, and also keep in touch with the Admissions department to facilitate collaborations or ways of increasing engagement with prospective students”. Younger students, such as Jiang, can be editors, writers, or content creators, producing original media for the consumption of Exeter students. Jiang cites, “I’m the writing editor, so I basically edit all the articles that people write and I also can write articles of my own and I make videos of my own as well.”
Exie Blog is a tight-knit community of aspiring writers, social media creators, and those interested in bettering the life of Exonians. Through their meetings and outreach, they are able to glean how to best support Exeter students, and in turn deliver engaging content and media about student life. To view Exie Blog’s frequent publications, visit their page on Exeter Connect Sharepoint.