There are many groups, which divided into separate hierarchies to make it easier to find what you are looking for. It may be confusing at first, but it really only takes a few days to have a good working knowledge of the system, and in a few weeks it'll be second nature. You cannot only post original articles, but also post follow-up articles to existing posts, or send email to the author of a post. Newsgroups range from the technical, such as sci.aeronautics, to the creative, such as rec.arts.anime.stories, to the odd, such as alt.discordia. There are over sixty groups dedicated to different areas of life at WPI alone.
Net news is informative, entertaining, and educational.
You can keep track of the latest for your major, or your hobbies, the groups are there for you to take advantage of. There are some basic rules, or netiquette, to be followed. The group news.announce.newusers should be read by those new to the networks for a good description of what is acceptable. However, there are some basics that are common sense. A good strategy for new users is to read news for a few weeks without posting.