Campaigning this semester was a lesson learned for me. I ran for Miss Southern 2008-2009. What I learned about this vigorous trip of campaigning and planning for this big event is that everything won’t go like you want it to go. It will be prepared chaos, people you thought will be there won’t, list you’ve made, will fall through, and eventually you will just go off your gut feeling. If it feels right, just go with it.
Leading up to campaigning was the Constitution exam, which was the test to run for any position in Student Government Association. The test was Tuesday, the week before campaigning and the results were Thursday. The preparation for this test is twenty-one pages of the Constitution, sixteen pages of the Bylaws, and eleven pages of the Election Code. The test consists of forty questions in all and you can only miss eight of forty, which is eighty percent. In my opinion, this test should be given to the students at the beginning of the semester, because we are all in school and we have to study for this test and test in our classes also. By giving the test in the beginning of the semester, it will have the definite candidates who will run for the week of campaigning. That way the candidates could be allowed to tell other students that they are running for a position and hold meetings, without getting sanctioned. If the university or the election committee decide to do the constitution in the beginning of the semester it would eliminate rushing, anxiety, and some stress of campaigning.
Better yet if your campaign team can sell you while you are talking to another person, let them. One thing I told my team was don’t come to me with any negativity, unless I sincerely need to know. I prepared my campaign team to go to the two people I trusted most, my manager and tabulator; which things didn’t work out like that. By Tuesday everything had fallen on me, my campaign manager and tabulator were both in and out. So the two people I relied on didn’t pull through, because didn’t know what to do or how to do things, waiting on me to give them the orders. Ignorance sometimes is bliss because they fooled me all the way up until the actual week of campaigning.
Luckily, my campaign team pulled through and that week just felt like true bonding. We all got along like a family. By the end of campaigning, my friends and or campaign team made me realize how I brought all of them together and without that crazy week ever happening we wouldn’t be as close as we are right now.
One thing I learned about campaigning is that you can have hundreds of people backing you, wearing your shirt, and even calling your name, but at the end of the day do they even know why they are voting for you? What you stand for or how will your views better Southern University? Most students like to talk to a candidate one on one, get personal and let the candidate tell students why they are the best candidate and there is no one better, or if your campaign team can sell you just like you can sell yourself, without the slander.
As of now I am an ordinary student trying to do extraordinary things by proceeding in my platform. I can do one of three things: give it to Student Government Association and have them to potentially fulfill my endeavors, try to fulfill my platform myself, which may be extremely hard, or do nothing and leave Southern University as is.
I will work up to my fullest potential to fulfill my platform, I don’t need a position to better Southern University, I still will continue with my endeavors. If anyone wants to better Southern University just do it; don’t be that statistic complaining about it, be that small percentage that actually wants to make a difference.
