Looking Back

My education at Michigan, specifically one class, helped me prepare for this internship. My Women Studies class I took last semester helped me look at the issues that mattered to the people in an intersectional way.   This helped my dialogue with constituents when discussing the issues that my candidate stands for and believes in.  This class helped me realize that a lot of the issues that affect people overlap. For example, issues of living wage often affect single mothers, who are also affected by gender issues.

That being said my education did not prepare me for some things, because these things, such as talking with unhappy constituents, time management, dealing with sexism. can only be learned through experience. I had hoped that sexism would not be an issue in this race but it was.  My candidate was the only woman running in the primary and was often not taken as seriously by her opponents. This was extremely frustrating.  However, one thing I learned from my candidate is that when you are facing people’s doubts, work really hard to prove them wrong.

This experience also taught me so much about patience. I learned how to calmly appease people who may have ridiculous demands. (One lady wondered if my candidate could ban all tattoo and piercing parlors.)

At the beginning of this internship I thought that I would like working on a campaign, and for the most part I did.  I enjoyed working for a candidate I believed in.  I think that I would enjoy working on more campaigns in the future and maybe even make a career out of this.