Shulman was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised in the city's Selby-Dale neighborhood. His father Abraham, a house painter, and his mother Bessie Karchmar were Jewish immigrants from Belarus.

As a student at the University of Minnesota, where he was classmate of Thomas Heggen, Thomas R. St. George and Norman Katkov, Shulman wrote a column for the Minnesota Daily as well as pieces for Ski-U-Mah, the college humor magazine. His writing humorously exaggerated campus culture. Shortly after Shulman graduated in 1942, an agent from Doubleday persuaded Shulman to send him some clips, which resulted in the campus satire Barefoot Boy With Cheek, a surprise 1943 bestseller. In 1947 Shulman adapted Barefoot Boy into a musical of the same name.
What was written in Ski-U-Mah?
Ski-U-Mah was the college humor magazine for University of Minnesota. Shulman wrote pieces for Ski-U-Mah humorously exaggerating campus culture.

It is not clear from the text what else was written in Ski-U-Mah, but presumably there were other humorous pieces written about topics relating to University of Minnesota.