Student Elections... Lawl

[A Satanic Panda]

As I type this post, the Student Government candidates are giving their speeches. Everyone running is taking it seriously, except one candidate that, as a part of his speech, shunned the whole system of student elections and the candidates. Paraphrase: "This proves that I have the two things needed to be on the SGA board, I'm determined, and I'm stupid." Needless to say, everyone clapped.

So what does the Escapist think of student elections?

Captcha: saucy!

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I once ran for a student thing in school, but I had no chance, not because I was underqualified or unsuitable, but because the teacher made me do my "Why you should elect me" speech first, out of about 5 people. By the time the last speech was over everyone had forgotten everything I had said bar one joke I put in. Generally student positions like that are just a joke, no power whatsoever, because if you did give schoolkids power they would use it to get a coke machine in, or longer break times. Nothing educationally beneficial would ever come of it.

EDIT: Actually University positions aren't much better. Well, they have a lot more power, and get loads of stuff done, but the elections are always dumb, revolving around voting for the guy whose posters were photoshops of himself on Rambos body with a cheesy pun in the tagline "Vote for me and I'll fight for your rights" or something.

Actually now I think of it our government elections basically come down to the same thing:

Wow, this guy is coloured like the American flag, that clearly gives him all the qualifications he needs to run an entire country!
Yeah, clearly the problem is a bit deeper than young people being shallow...

 

[Shivarage]

Nothing educationally beneficial would ever come of it.

I disagree, the fact that education takes "politics" seriously means they aren't teaching you any good

you should read up on the leader of the Liberal Democrats of the UK parliament and look at all his promises, you will find he kept NONE of his promises at all and he gets no punishment for it

 

[Esotera]

We recently had a candidate who used to be LGBT but then ran her university campaign based on how lgbt was immoral...that shitstorm was rather amusing to watch.

Yeah, student governments are always a bit of a joke, and the majority of people will vote for the person from their school, so the candidate from the biggest school ends up winning. So it's just as flawed as regular politics, except vote-fixing happens more often, and everyone who actually gets elected has delusions of grandeur about the power they have.

 

[Rawne1980]

As a bloke who went to school in the UK in the 80's .... I have no idea what the frack you are talking about.

The only thing we ever voted on in school was "who would win between Lion'O and He Man".

 

[krazykidd]

All elections are a joke . Student or govemental ( i'm basing this on american and canadian govemental elections). First : they are all liars. They all say stuff to get people riled up . And people fall for it every four years and spend the rest of the four years complaining . Second : people mostly always vote for the same party or side . There are a few that actually listens to what the politicians say , but the majority already have their side chosen before the actual elections/debates . Third : the debates are all arguments to try to one up the next guy . I becomes a he said/ she said talk . The day when a policitian refuses to argue and try to discredit another politician , and talk about himself and what he believes , is the day i'll bother to vote . I'm just waiting for this sentence " i am not here to discredit my adversary , i am here to talk about what i can and will do for my country and will let the people make an informed decision , and will abide by their decision , because the people are smart enough to not be fooled and make and informed choice ". Chances are that sentence will never be said .

 

[Melon Hunter]

I'm with you. Student elections are, by and large, worthless. Our student union elections at our university had a turnout of 16%, and I honestly couldn't tell you who any of the candidates were. Furthermore, as Cambridge is collegiate, most students don't care for the University's union at all, instead focusing on their own college's JCR or MCR. (Junior Combination Room for undergraduates, and Middle Combination Room for postgraduates) At least I can someway relate to our JCR committee, seeing as they have a smaller group to appeal to.

Also, I've had a grudge against the Woman's Officer ever since she published this sneering article about the Cambridge Union Society refusing to back down on inviting Dominique Strauss-Khan to speak, calling the Union a 'institution blinkered with prejudice'. This coming from someone who took a year out of their studies to faff about in a position of virtually no power, having been voted for by about 8% of the student population. Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Rastien]

We had this introcuded in my last year of school. Its a joke really, just a popularity contest where nothing really gets done or changed and the most populour kid in school wins whom everyone knew before the canditates were announced would win.

Hence why i spent my entire time during this "election" aquiring the files used to make the posters and altering them accordingly with the rumours around school about said people.

It got banned the year after this as someone else at the school did the same thing but made up nasty statements and photoshopped the pictures to support such statements.

Ahh good old Horsey Anne, apprently she got caught in a field fondling horse balls, its a nick name that people in town still call her, shes made it her own now good ol Horsey

So yeah... student elections fun times.

 

[worldruler8]

We had a Student election about 2 weeks ago at my university. I didn't really pay much attention, mainly because I was more focused on passing (I'm on probation, and I'd like to not be on probation). But, based on what I've seen, the politics in the university got heated. Someone made pokemon chalk drawings on the sidewalks, and some damn good ones. He just did it for the hell of it. Then someone wrote down "Vote for so and so" in a speech bubble next to them. Then someone made a huge "Vote for Party B". Then, the next day, someone drew huge X's over them. I...I'm just baffled at this.

 

[Albino Boo]

I disagree, the fact that education takes "politics" seriously means they aren't teaching you any good

you should read up on the leader of the Liberal Democrats of the UK parliament and look at all his promises, you will find he kept NONE of his promises at all and he gets no punishment for it

Apart from the fact they have just been overtaken by Ukip in the polls and after next election they will be lucky if they have more than 20 MPs.

As a bloke who went to school in the UK in the 80's .... I have no idea what the frack you are talking about.

The only thing we ever voted on in school was "who would win between Lion'O and He Man".

In my School, in about 86, they tried to introduce a school council, we voted the in the special needs class. The next year they didn't bother. Anyway the right debate was between who was sexier, Cheetara or She Ra.

 

[Shivarage]

Apart from the fact they have just been overtaken by Ukip in the polls and after next election they will be lucky if they have more than 20 MPs.

Irrelevant, the damage has been done and there was no punishment - docking pay for every broken promise would have been the least, the fact Cleggy signed a public pledge (you can find the pic with an image search) gives us concrete evidence

by your logic, I can break into your house and smash up all the lights, your tv and then you as you sleep but that's okay because I left the building a few minutes after

Captcha: hug me

 

[scorptatious]

All I know is, there are only two people I want to lead my Student Governmental body:

Spoiler

To be honest though, the only thing I can see why people have student elections is to possibly influence students to go into politics. Besides that, I don't see very much point in having them.

 

[Auron225]

It drives me insane. I'm in uni now and so Im sure the Student Committee or whatever they call their club do have more power than the average high school equivalent would but even so... its painful!

It wouldnt affect me personally in any way - and I know people hear that and say "Of course it would! You just don't know how!" They just dont know my university life. I live at home, get free lifts in and out (my dad passes it everyday), Im not it any clubs or societies, and they have no power over my studies. Therefore, nothing they do will affect my life - if it does, its in a way so small its 100% impossible for me to give a flying shit. So getting handed flyers and being asked if Ive voted EVERY F*CKING TIME I walk in and out of any building on campus is such a waste of everyone's time! AND THEY TAKE IT SO SERIOUSLY! I cannot fathom how on Earth this can become so important to someone handing out flyers that they would dare hand me one and ask if Ive voted when Im glaring death at them in a "Don't even try it!" kind of way. It never worked! 0.0 It was so exhausting that I never had the energy to say "No, I haven't voted. I'm not going to. Nothing you say throughout the rest of your life will convince me to, so f*ck off" - and had to settle with "Yes" as fast as humanly possible.

So yeah - not a fan =)

 

[LongAndShort]

I ran for Student Representative Council in high school. My basic platform was that the others were ideas people and pretty faces, but you needed someone to do the actual leg work for the various events the school was running.
Didn't do too badly, but I was never gonna get in, to many people better known and liked than me. That and I was basically told by one of the deputy principles that he wouldn't have let me be elected after I called the student body 'bastards' in my main election speech. Yeah, he was not happy. I had a bunch of other teachers come up to me afterwards who supported it, figured that I made it up on the fly and hoped I wouldn't be discouraged. That was cool.

Anyway, now I'm at Uni and I have a very low opinion of the various elections being held. The bright side is most of the parties tend to print Sudoku and crosswords on their pamphlets, providing something to do in long lectures. I usually vote for the party with the best puzzles.

Unless they're communists *muttering* upper-middle-class self-righteous liberal-art-student bastards. One of their fuckin campaign promises was "Pulling troops out of Afghanistan" I shit you not it was on their flyers and posters. How the fuck were they going to do that? Write an angry letter to the Prime Minister? Or how about President Obama? Imagine that; Aide: Sir, we just received a letter from the SRC of Sydney University, they want us to pull our troops out of Afghanistan, or at least let Australia pull out theirs. President Obama: Well, shit, if they want us to pull the troops out, we better. Don't want to piss them off. They might start a petition or print a poster calling me a fascist.
Don't even get me started on their promise to "end Israel's occupation of the Palestinians."