Entering Suffolk University as a legal adult that can vote, I was excited to be able to use my new power to make a change in an environment that already has a high voting population. However, what I was not prepared for was not being educated on how I can vote.
Being from Southern California, I have found that it is a lot more confusing to vote when your university is in a different state than where you can vote. Suffolk encourages their students to vote, but I found less encouragement when I mentioned I vote in California.
No one was educating me on the absentee ballot or where and how I could obtain one.
While peers of mine got more information on how they could vote in MA, mine ended and I felt left out of the mix.
Being educated on the political scene in Massachusetts is very interesting and has provided me with more knowledge about my school as well as California, where I live for the majority of the year. Although I do not vote for Massachusetts related politics, I still want to be a part of the system.
The politics of Massachusetts and California differ, but the variance has allowed me insight, as well as knowledge, on how another state works and implements ideas. The knowledge I gained here was being applied to my life back home.
The opioid discussion is a lot more relevant in Massachusetts whereas in California I found that more environmental issues and how to fix them in the government was of greater discussion.
This led to my further enthusiasm in voting.
I really wanted to vote and be a part of the political scene since I was being educated on it within my classes as well as being a part of Boston and living directly across from the state house, but I just could not find out how.
I wanted to both be apart of voting and a part of Boston, but was having a hard time finding the resources to still be able to vote farther away.
Boston has a really diverse political scene and although I am unable to vote in Boston, I wanted to be apart of both worlds.
College is a place where people of countless backgrounds, as well as people from all across the world gather, so is there a way to better educate people from other places on how they can vote while being in Boston?
Suffolk did not leave me in the dark because this university has been a great source of news for me and other outlets in the political realm, but I think that colleges as a whole should implement more campus wide education on how people from all around the United States can vote.
Through an online forum, a small mass-sent email with links or even a bi-weekly event students could be informed on how they can get involved in ways that do not just pertain to the state their school is in.
A university should do this to create resources for those far from home, implementing in a young person that they are able to vote even if they are not in their home state. Leaving California and coming to Boston has been a big transition for me and knowing I get to be a part of my state while away makes me feel as though I can still make a difference in my absence.
Getting involved in voting allows for a student’s voice to be heard on a much larger scale, allowing them to both enter into an adult conversation as well as be apart of something much bigger. Being allowed to vote is a freedom and a right.
Practicing that right can make a student feel as though they are making a decision toward their future.
With something like an email with connecting links to how to register to vote, how to obtain an absentee ballot and where to find what we are voting on, students then are given the opportunity to register and educate themselves.
With all of this information, it is left up to the student whether he or she will participate.
