Everyone knows that college is a busy time. Applying for internships, filling up on role in extracurriculars to beef up your resume and trying to make Dean’s List is hard to keep a handle on while you’re also surrounded by all your best friends 24/7 makes it hard to find a second for yourself, let alone to focus on the bigger picture things outside of campus life.
However, this is also the greatest advantage of college: we get to be exposed to all differing opinions of life and have independence from the views our parents raised us with in order to forge our own political personalities.
As a senior student who, on top of applying for full time post grad jobs, works 3 jobs, is on the executive board for 2 clubs, is an ambassador for Student Government, and is a member of 4 other campus clubs along with taking 5 classes, I can tell you that I am more stressed about the future of our country than any of the above committments.
Let’s face it, if mysogonist and uninformed Trump becomes president, then what was even the point of me being a Women’s Health Ambassador? Abortion will be illegal anyway, and I’ll still be making $0.73 to a man’s $1, so why bother.
I have seen plenty of my friends sharing articles on Facebook which condemn either Trump or Hillary, and those are the same people whom I know did not file for an absentee vote. How can you condemn a process you have done no role in attempting to fix?
Enough with the “It takes so long to get an absentee ballot” and “My vote won’t matter anyway” excuses. You don’t “hate politcs” you’re uninformed and apparently content with living in ignorance.
As we enter adulthood, it’s no longer “cool” to not understand the implications and workings of politics. It starts to affect your daily life. How much in taxes will be taken away from you, how many of your friends may no longer feel accepted in their country, how it will affect the jobs available for you. You don’t need to be a poltics major in order to make time to understand what’s going on – if you’re privileged enough to live in a free country like the USA, you should not abuse that privilege. In other countries young girls, if they are even allowed to cast a vote, are killed while trying to choose a new leader for their country. And here, we have girls who don’t want to take 10 minutes out of their social media checking routine so that they can register to have a ballot mailed directly to their doorstep.
In Maryland, I had my ballot sent right to my email, all I had to do was print it out, fill it out, and drop it in the mail box. It took me less time than it takes me to do my daily dicussion posts for my class. Not only is it easy, but it’s also important to say that you had a role in such a pivotal election.
In my opinion, if you don’t vote and ar then dissatified with the election, you lose all right to criticize our government because your lack of participation is part of the reason we got here today.
Vote because you can, and vote for those who are unable to do so. 20 minutes out of your day now save you an extra 10 years of working later in life to make up for the money you’re unfairly losing to a man.
If for no other reason- vote so you get the sick ass sticker which you can instagram.