Listen Here
By Pulse Staff
Graham Shore, a University of Findlay sophomore and Business Administration-Sport Business Strategy Emphasis Major, has a theory about what would make college students care about politics and voting.
“You got to shake their world a little bit,” Shore said during a recent conversation about the upcoming midterm election.
The UF Digital Media Club took a few minutes to talk about what would make students care about midterm elections and elections in general and the conversation led to some interesting observations.
Desiree Smith, a UF senior Multi-Age Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Education Major, says college students are still in the stage of learning about political matters and may be less confident about speaking their mind.
“People are growing, shaping their own identities,” Smith said. “But people may be, I guess, afraid of being judged. So, some people may contour their answers based on what may be acceptable by the public.”
“They’re at the weird stage where it’s like, you know, a lot of times, when in high school, you just kind of take on whatever your parents believe,” Shore said. “But then you get here and then you get exposed to certain things.”
UF Senior Jeremiah Jackson says sometimes college is a safety net for students who don’t participate in civic engagement.
“They don’t have to be informed,” Jackson said. “But when they get out into the real world, then they see it firsthand. And then they want to be more proactive about it.”
Discussing political topics such as immigration, college affordability, racial justice issues, and inflation, the group expressed that those topics aren’t always what influences the youth vote.
“More so the background knowledge that will encourage us to vote because sure, we may vote, but what if we’re voting something that we don’t know about,” Smith said. “Or the people who are voting for- if we vote for them, then what else would they change. I feel like there should be research that is promoted from our political leaders in society or possible political leaders.”
“I think students are only probably going to be more engaged if it directly affects them,” Jackson said.
“Shake their world,” Shore said.
Find out more about what you need to know in the November Midterm elections.
