OSU Election Victory... as told by Brett McFarland
When I was approached about running for a position in USG, I did not know what the process would entail. I previously thought about doing something in USG, but I had no idea on how to get started. I was "recruited," and as soon I made my decision to join my team, it was time to get to work. The first team meeting was overwhelming; there were so many people and teams dedicated to winning the election. I really had no idea that it took so much planning and skill to start a campaign.
I helped create some of the ideas for the policies we would focus both on our campaign and our time in office if elected. It was very similar to textbook brainstorming sessions, where we would just thorw out ideas on different topics like safety or student outreach, and narrowed them down to feasible platform ideas. Our platform was very comprehensive, and hopefully we get to make implement it. There were also meetings to help develop our strategy, and build a sense of purpose. I also took this time to get to know some of my fellow running mates. Since, if we were successful, these would be the people I would be governing the school with, and I thought it would be very fitting to just find out what everyone was about. A lot of people on my campaign were very cool. Very smart, hard-working individuals, and very "down to earth" as well. I thought that was a very good sign for the year to come.
Outside of our campaign meetings, I started networking with people that could potentially help the campaign during election time. (We couldn't go out and ask people to vote for us until the official campaign time period, which were the days that the polls opened up, so there were limits on how much information we could discuss with our friends/associates.) Networking is very key to the campaigning, because you never know how people can help you out.You may have a conversation with someone who is a president of an organization that that could cast all of 100 votes for you. Or you could just be joking around with someone who will vote for you as soon as the election day comes. I made sure to expand my network as much as possible during this time, because I know that every vote would count. But I also made sure that I did not look at people just as votes, but people, students. Those were peers who paid a lot of money to go a great school, and really just wanted to have a great college experience. And that's one thing that really kept me focus, was improving the quality of life here at The Ohio State University.
It did astonish me how many people didn't know about USG, or what it could do, and it's very unfortunate because USG is one of the strongest organizations here on campus. But telling people what it's purpose was and all the good it could do was rewarding, and knowing that I helped change the perception of it even slightly made me feel a little better. Once election time came, USG became all I could think about. What organizations I could talk to, how many people we could get to vote, our strategy vs. theirs.
I really did not want to lose, so it campaigning became an absolute must. Whether it was out on the oval, or in talking with friends, there was a lot of spreading our name out to the masses. One thing I was big on was name recognition; getting as many people as possible to see our logo, and see our names. I think that is also important in an election, because its the names that people remember that get voted for. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience. It took a lot of effort, I repeat, a lot of effort, but when I saw my name on the email as one on the selected senators, I couldn't begin to contain my joy.
I helped create some of the ideas for the policies we would focus both on our campaign and our time in office if elected. It was very similar to textbook brainstorming sessions, where we would just thorw out ideas on different topics like safety or student outreach, and narrowed them down to feasible platform ideas. Our platform was very comprehensive, and hopefully we get to make implement it. There were also meetings to help develop our strategy, and build a sense of purpose. I also took this time to get to know some of my fellow running mates. Since, if we were successful, these would be the people I would be governing the school with, and I thought it would be very fitting to just find out what everyone was about. A lot of people on my campaign were very cool. Very smart, hard-working individuals, and very "down to earth" as well. I thought that was a very good sign for the year to come.
Outside of our campaign meetings, I started networking with people that could potentially help the campaign during election time. (We couldn't go out and ask people to vote for us until the official campaign time period, which were the days that the polls opened up, so there were limits on how much information we could discuss with our friends/associates.) Networking is very key to the campaigning, because you never know how people can help you out.You may have a conversation with someone who is a president of an organization that that could cast all of 100 votes for you. Or you could just be joking around with someone who will vote for you as soon as the election day comes. I made sure to expand my network as much as possible during this time, because I know that every vote would count. But I also made sure that I did not look at people just as votes, but people, students. Those were peers who paid a lot of money to go a great school, and really just wanted to have a great college experience. And that's one thing that really kept me focus, was improving the quality of life here at The Ohio State University.
It did astonish me how many people didn't know about USG, or what it could do, and it's very unfortunate because USG is one of the strongest organizations here on campus. But telling people what it's purpose was and all the good it could do was rewarding, and knowing that I helped change the perception of it even slightly made me feel a little better. Once election time came, USG became all I could think about. What organizations I could talk to, how many people we could get to vote, our strategy vs. theirs.
I really did not want to lose, so it campaigning became an absolute must. Whether it was out on the oval, or in talking with friends, there was a lot of spreading our name out to the masses. One thing I was big on was name recognition; getting as many people as possible to see our logo, and see our names. I think that is also important in an election, because its the names that people remember that get voted for. All in all, it was a very rewarding experience. It took a lot of effort, I repeat, a lot of effort, but when I saw my name on the email as one on the selected senators, I couldn't begin to contain my joy.
posted by Amir Abed at
10:28 AM
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