Alum Features: Amanda Castro, Horseshoe Magazine Creator

The University of New Haven shows pride in its alumni and the legacies they leave on campus, even years after the students have departed to pursue their careers. One of these notable alumni is Amanda Castro, the creator of Charger Bulletin Magazine, now better known as Horseshoe Magazine. Through her vision and entrepreneurial spirit, Castro has left behind a creation that celebrates diverse voices and ideas — an organization that still holds these ideals years after her departure.

Before coming to the University of New Haven, Amanda Castro, born in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, moved to the United States to get good medical care for her type 1 diabetes. She attended an arts school to hone her writing skills as a high school senior before attending university.

“Up until around 10th grade, I wanted to be a doctor,” said Castro. “Around then, I discovered that I had a passion for writing. I would always be the girl who shot her hand up asking how many words the assigned essays were.”

The University of New Haven was Castro’s first choice when choosing a school on the East Coast, where she credits the strong staff and support for someone pursuing a career in journalism.

“The programs here were just so strong when I looked into it,” she said. “Also, they had a strong staff, with notable professors such as Susan Campbell really standing out to me. As soon as I got the call from the school saying I’d been accepted, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is it.’”

Castro began her first year at UNH in 2018 as a commuter, taking the train from New York to classes, where she would make fond memories with friends.

“Being a commuter, I wasn’t always on campus, but the times I was, I had a really good time,” said Castro. “I made two of my closest friends in a class with a tough professor. It was always such a mess.”

In Castro’s senior year, she chose what would eventually become Charger Bulletin Magazine for her honors thesis, sparked by an idea from a class.

“I was in a class that semester that was on interpretive writing, which was really right up my alley and I knew was exciting to other students as well,” she said. “I also had the experience of creating a website and building it up from ground zero, which was fun and taught me a lot.”

Castro credits the creation of Horseshoe Magazine to her knack for overwriting, as well as the lack of essay writing in the Charger Bulletin newspaper.

“If you were to give me a word limit, I’d have to keep track to make sure that I stayed within the requirements, which made me feel like I was missing out on vital information that would make the article perfect,” said Castro. “You don’t really get to explore deeper articles in the Charger Bulletin newspaper, which got me thinking that despite students usually not wanting to write more, a magazine would open the doors up to more possibilities of students wanting to learn more and give more inclination to write.”

Her biggest struggle during the creation process of the magazine was getting viewers to interact with the website she created

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“Interest is hard to garner when you’re a bustling student with other things on your mind,” said Castro. “I was hoping for student traffic to lead people to the magazine, which didn’t go as well as I thought it would, with things picking up only a month before I had to present my thesis.”

One of Castro’s biggest regrets throughout her college career was her lack of presence on campus outside of classes.

“While being a commuter and having online classes was a lifesaver, I think having more campus experiences would’ve changed my college experience as a whole,” she said. “I basically only saw my friends via Zoom calls and through discussion board posts; it would’ve been nice to hang out with them once or twice a week, though.”

Castro said she finds her inspiration and drive through her mother, Cynthia.

“She’s been through a lot and has always handled her life with such grace and poise,” she said. “I’ve always looked up to everything she does, and living life the way she did is my biggest aspiration.”

Castro’s biggest belief is that it is imperative to never give up on pursuing journalism.

“It’s a competitive market right now in the world of journalism,” she said. “You'll hear more noes than yeses, meaning you have to be prepared to be rejected and move on and continue trying. There's a lot of pressure to be ethical in the world of journalism. It’s a matter of how you handle the pressure of criticism that separates the good writers from the great writers.”

Photo from University of New Haven