If creating a magazine is a tall task at the best of times, developing one as a full-time student sounds nerve-wracking.

That hasn't stopped 25 years' worth of Communications students from doing just that, though. 

For a quarter of a century, students reading Communications at the University of Malta have been churning out a magazine every year, as part of a module designed to give them first-hand experience of the world they are studying.

“Students do everything, from sourcing the content to designing the magazine, finding adverts and sponsors to organising the printing,” explained University of Malta lecturer Malcolm Bonello. “I’m just there to supervise”.

Mr Bonello has been leading the yearly project at the Faculty of Media & Knowledge Sciences for the past nine years, having taken over the project from the man who got the ball rolling, Prof. Ġorġ Mallia.

Under Mr Bonello's watch, students have produced magazines focused on, among other things, getting out of your comfort zone – Dare – or anything and everything to do with the human body, Raw.

Going local in 2019

The 2019 offering will take a more local approach. B’Ċikka is out to find the hidden stories within Malta and recreate that feeling of coming across a gem of a place down a little village lane.

“It will resemble a guidebook,” members of the B’Ċikka team tell Times of Malta, “similar to a journal a wanderer would see”.

“We want to highlight the forgotten, bring the hidden to light and display things which are truly unique and not commonly known of our culture.”

Submissions have been flowing in, the team say, with first drafts in by this past Monday and the editing process expected to be done by mid-April.

The challenge, they admit, is finding sponsors.

“Convincing companies to advertise is always the most difficult part,” Mr Bonello says. “There are a few businesses which help us out every year, but for the most part students have to do it all from scratch”.

To supplement their income and drum up interest in their project, the B’Ċikka team is organising a number of side events. The next one on the calendar, B’Ċikka Explores, will see photography enthusiasts hike along Riviera at sunset, cameras in hand, this coming Sunday.

In the meantime, work is under way to get B’Ċikka out in time.

“We’ll be printing anything between 1,000 and 2,500 copies, and students will be able to pick up their free copy on campus in May,” the team said.