{"id":144555,"date":"2019-05-04T14:00:19","date_gmt":"2019-05-04T13:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/?p=144555"},"modified":"2019-05-02T18:48:19","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T17:48:19","slug":"what-being-involved-in-student-politics-taught-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.society19.com\/uk\/what-being-involved-in-student-politics-taught-me\/","title":{"rendered":"What Being Involved In Student Politics Taught Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Looking back, you tend to ask yourself if it was all worth it. Are the bridges burned worth the lessons learned?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For the entirety of my time at Sydney University I was heavily involved in the student political scene that has flourished on that campus especially for decades. I ran as a candidate, held numerous positions in student unions, managed election campaigns and organised activist campaigns. I\u2019m proud of some things I achieved and ashamed and of others. From my initial recruitment as a fresh-faced first year at arts camp to a grizzled head-kicker orchestrating a student union in my fifth, I undoubtedly saw and did some shit. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Even tangential involvement in the bizarre sunken place that is \u2018stupol\u2019 will impart many invaluable lessons. To spare you some of the damage I accrued learning them, here\u2019s what I learnt during my time as a student politician.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Trust Your Gut <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">This is something that will serve you well throughout life. Often, I would know instinctually when something didn\u2019t feel right. I would have pulled back from so many deals and been more honest had I listened to that niggling internal monologue. Luckily, negotiating an electoral block or conflict in a campaign taught me how to drown out the noise and start listening to myself. For the most part, my naturally TBD tendencies were a large part of my political persona after all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span id=\":2f1.co\" class=\"tL8wMe EMoHub\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Real Eyes Recognise Real Lies <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">You make a lot of alliances in student politics but not a lot of true friends. When I was starting out I trusted freely and boy did I get burnt. The pursuit of power makes people do terrible things, willing to discard even the most supposedly beloved comrade for a title. Whilst stupol really darked me out regarding some elements of the human condition, mainly the bone-chilling depths some individuals sunk to, it also provided me with connections I still cherish today. A shared political perspective is the cherry on top of a wonderful friendship after all. I\u2019m just not sure if it completely neutralises the dread I feel when contemplating the fact that many of the psychos I went toe to toe with will be helping run the country in a decade or two. I can speak on this with authority &#8211; I was the architect of three notorious #repselects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Never Give Up<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My personal hack theme song was Won\u2019t Back Down for a reason haters! If I\u2019d thrown in the towel I wouldn&#8217;t have helped run the campaign to save Sydney College of the Arts, the SRC would have been run by the Liberals as early as 2015 and Honi Soit would have had a lot more trouble filling column inches. Life isn\u2019t easy and politics is even more dastardly. Oddly enough, the crucial lesson was that sometimes you&#8217;re gonna lose. Some elections go the other way, struggles are lost and the bad guys succeed (soon enough you\u2019ll see them in parliament.) It\u2019s how you deal with it that counts because as Fantasia once crooned, sometimes you gotta lose to win again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span id=\":2f1.co\" class=\"tL8wMe EMoHub\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">United We Stand, Divided We Fall<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Yes student politics is messy, craven and essentially tragicomedy. Student activism, on the other hand, is inspiring, relevant and necessary. During my time in the game, I saw students defeat fee deregulation, combat sexual assault on campus and stand in solidarity with Indigenous Australians. We contributed to a proud and inspiring history of student activism With the existential threat of climate change, it\u2019s never been more important to be politically active and flex our collective strength. There is a reason we used to chant \u201dstudents united, will never be defeated!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Youth is Wasted on the Young <\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whilst my time in student politics was difficult, it\u2019s something I don\u2019t regret. If anything, now I\u2019ve graduated the main emotion I feel reminiscing on those halcyon days is bittersweet nostalgia. Knowing what I know now I\u2019d do so much differently. But without those stumbles, the victories wouldn\u2019t have been as sweet. Stupol gets a bad rap for being a lions den of disordered personalities, unnecessary excess and broken promises. I\u2019d rather see it as a fleeting moment of youthful passion, collective struggle and particularly colourful memories.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span id=\":2f1.co\" class=\"tL8wMe EMoHub\" dir=\"ltr\"><\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">What do you think your political involvement has taught you? Discuss and debate below! <\/span><\/h3>\n<h5><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Featured Image Source: Author\u2019s Facebook<\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back, you tend to ask yourself if it was all worth it. Are the bridges burned worth the lessons learned? For the entirety of my time at Sydney University I was heavily involved in the student political scene that has flourished on that campus especially for decades. I ran as a candidate, held numerous&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25292,"featured_media":144556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1796,1793],"tags":[17454,8055,20148,20149,20150],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-144555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-societies","category-uni-life","tag-activism","tag-campus-life","tag-political","tag-student-politics","tag-sydney-university"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Being Involved In Student Politics Taught Me - Society19 UK<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Even tangential involvement in the world of student politics will impart many lessons. 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