A Note from the Editor: Express Yourself

Dear Reader,

IQ Magazine is a long-term project that InQuire has been planning to undertake for over six months. The magazine you are currently holding has been in the works from late October to late November, with the initial idea and plans for design going back into the 2018/2019 academic year. It is a project that embraces all aspects of InQuire’s operations; those being our writers, editors, marketers, designers, and photographers. It has tested our abilities to create high quality and long-form content. All the pieces you find in this magazine have been chosen, crafted, and created to the highest standards we can possibly achieve.

This magazine is an embodiment of the extensive work, talent, and determination that takes place at InQuire Media. IQ magazine is made entirely out of student initiative, with student interests and issues at the heart of all its content. Every word, every page, and every design has been constructed out of the creativity, drive, and professionalism of University of Kent students, in an effort for their voices to be heard and for awareness to be raised for the issues they deem crucial.

In this special edition, you will find true stories from real students. Students who have made the effort to reveal their intimate experiences in order to raise awareness of their circumstances and to illustrate, through their memories, the importance of the topics they are sharing and the lessons they have learned. From articles on domestic abuse to applications to Oxbridge universities, these stories are told for the benefit of Kent students, to highlight the realities of student life and to give a voice to the students on our campus: from first-years to mature students. All these stories have been recorded from innumerable sources, representing the multifarious and wide range of experiences.

IQ magazine promotes awareness of issues that currently affect both students and staff alike, in both an objective and subjective manner. It confronts stigmas such as gender, disability, and work-place injustices by drawing on instances that have directly infringed upon the well-being of students and the University itself. All of these issues were chosen to reflect the realities of being a Kent student and the challenges faced by all areas of the student community.

Furthermore, we aim to highlight the originality and inventiveness of the cultures that are exhibited in Canterbury and at the University of Kent. We have included the content that we believe best demonstrates the inspiring creativity that thrives within the Gulbenkian, the Marlowe Theatre and within the minds of students. To display this creative talent of students, we have extended our range of content to include an original piece of creative work, written by our Creative Writing Competition winner, which can be read in the Culture section of this magazine.

This magazine contains the insights, contributions, and creations of nearly every member of InQuire’s 50-plus volunteer student team, including the various volunteer student writers, photographers, designers, and marketers. All these students, many without prior experience to InQuire and knowledge in industry-standard tools, have banded together to learn new skills and experiment with their creativity to put together a magazine that is a testament to the ability, ingenuity, and ambition that is exhibited in the University of Kent student body. It is only through the perseverance and drive of all those individual student volunteers that this magazine exists.

This magazine has required the InQuire team to completely rethink our design and content, focusing more upon the quality and professionalism than ever before. We have always held ourselves to high standards, however, this magazine has been the ultimate test in our resilience and ability to adapt.

This project has brought our team immense pleasure. It has drawn out the very best in our individual abilities, brought our team closer together, and enlightened us to new forms of thinking and creating.

Our aim is always to give the students the voice they deserve and to provide high-quality, intriguing content that will encourage students to speak out and share their stories even more in the future. We hope that you enjoy reading our magazine as much as our team enjoyed creating it.

Thank you.

George Knight,

Editor-in-Chief

This article is part of our one-off edition of IQ Magazine, out from November the 29th 2019. Pick up the magazine on campus in our InQuire distribution bins in Keynes, Co-op, the Templeman library and other locations on campus.