{"id":1618,"date":"2018-11-17T18:19:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T18:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/?p=1618"},"modified":"2020-03-28T21:56:17","modified_gmt":"2020-03-28T21:56:17","slug":"the-personal-development-of-a-campaign-intern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/2018\/11\/17\/the-personal-development-of-a-campaign-intern\/","title":{"rendered":"The Personal Development of a Campaign Intern"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Noah Bergam ’21<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In the last few weeks of summer, as bored as anyone on a lazy August afternoon might be, I decided to intern at my local Democratic congressional campaign. <\/span><\/p>\n

In some ways, I felt pressured; my parents kept telling me I should try something new \u2013\u00a0something that was not about technology or robotics. I was hesitant at first, although deep down I felt that taking a break from my tech-oriented agenda would be good for me. I have always had an interest in politics, which had thus far only manifested itself in reading news on my phone. I decided to take that a step further.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ironically enough, upon starting my internship, I felt more robotic than I had ever before. Upon my entrance into the paper, poster, and map-ridden headquarters, barely welcomed and surrounded by strangers who seemed to know exactly what they were doing, I was immediately tasked with three and a half hours of phone banking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Without knowing much of my candidate\u2019s policies aside from the fact that he was a Democrat, I was responsible for calling lists of possible voters (most of whom did not pick up), and convincing them to vote for Tom Malinowski. I was equipped with a script, mediocre conversational skills, and a roughly ten-minute training.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a humbling experience. I had always seen politics as something uplifting, something active that puts you in the news and brings about change in society. However, I had somehow found myself here, on the bottom of the campaign staff hierarchy, making calls to convince people to vote for a man I had never met, who I supported (at least in the beginning) solely due to a (relatively weak) party affiliation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Call after call (and house after house, when we went into the real world for canvassing), I discovered so many different people and reactions. I proved to myself the importance of slow and clear speaking, welcoming body language, and smiling and staying optimistic even when faced with challenging reactions.<\/span><\/p>\n

I also spent time during my lunch breaks learning more about my candidate\u2019s politics through online articles and conversations with fellow interns. In doing so, I came to better appreciate the cause for which I was fighting. I was more determined accomplish my task of contacting voters. I might not be Tom Malinowski, but I could still appreciate the fact that my work might make a difference in who represents my congressional district next year. And if not, so be it. I would still get so much more out of the experience than that.<\/span><\/p>\n

Calls and canvases became personal endeavors; I was no longer a robot, but a dedicated person trying to respectfully convince others of my beliefs. That is a skill that I appreciate developing\u2013 making a difference in the world means changing minds, little by little, and this internship was just the beginning. <\/span><\/p>\n

As I continue to volunteer with the campaign, I am more than ever glad that I took the chance apply myself to it in the first place. I feel that my work is rewarding, not only because Tom Malinowski may win a spot in Congress this November, but because of my own personal confidence, rhetoric, and knowledge of American politics have benefitted.<\/span><\/p>\n

If I learned one thing with the campaign, it\u2019s there\u2019s always more to discover once you leave your comfort zone. I was able to pick up on skills that I now know I was lacking in the past because I dove into my personal unknown.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Noah Bergam ’21 In the last few weeks of summer, as bored as anyone on a lazy August afternoon might be, I decided to intern at my local Democratic congressional campaign. In some ways, I felt pressured; my parents kept telling me I should try something new \u2013\u00a0something that was not about technology or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":1619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27,205,28],"tags":[29,143,30],"class_list":["post-1618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-noah","category-summer-experiences","tag-featured","tag-malinowski","tag-summer-experiences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1620,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1618\/revisions\/1620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/students.pingry.org\/record\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}