My name is Neilan Chaturvedi I am a
faculty member in the Department of
Political Science. On January 2nd
from the 2nd to the 9th, Dr. Guerrero and
I took a group of political science
students to Iowa to witness the
presidential nomination contest up close.
I wanted to get a more hands-on look at
the nomination process and really our
goal was to explore two questions, one is
the nomination process representative
and two, for our students to get a
hands-on experience of how presidential
campaigns work. As a minority, I see that
with the states and what's happening in
the nation that I do not see my rights
specifically being established or being
fought for in a bigger scheme of things
and I'm very interested in the political
aspect of it being more involved in
policy and creating change to get more
people involved and try to be like more
connected to what's happening.
As a first-year, I never thought I would
get an opportunity like this I had the
ability to work hands-on with campaigns
and working either phone banking or
going door-to-door canvassing coming
back to California I still have the
ability to do that and I still have connections
so that's what's amazing to me and I can
still do that living on here. I enjoyed
seeing how the whole voting process is
set up. This is my first election so I
really wanted to see how how it all goes
and since Iowa was the first state to make
the decision, it was interesting to see
how people make their decision and how
it affects the country. It would be
interesting to see both sides and I
would even consider doing for a midterm
election to see what the difference
between presidential and midterm
election years. It's amazing kind of like
going in you don't know anybody and then
at the end of the day like leaving like
time friends and now I know what I want
to do with my life in the future and I
know I want to do something that has to
do with either studying law or studying
something with Congress and campaigning
and that was my favorite thing about the
trip, that's what I love the most. It's a
new place I barely knew anyone even the
students on the trip I didn't know most
of them. We became a tight-knit family in
that trip because it's like we've been
doing everything together so long with
that in connections with the people in
Iowa some of them literally give us
their numbers to make sure that we have
contacts to come back to the caucus in
future years. It's so rewarding and
so the advice I'd have for other
students is one of these opportunities
arise I know it's scary, I know it's
expensive, I know, you sometimes,
you just got to work your butt off to do
this, but do it. It's so rewarding and
it's just been an amazing experience for
for not only us as faculty watching them
but the students as well.
