Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Palm Trees and Politics: My Summer Experience as a Campaign Fellow

For the last eight weeks, I’ve been interning at the Matt Haggman for Congress campaign. It’s been an eye-opening experience and has definitely helped me figure out my future career goals. Prior to coming to Babson and deciding on business, I had aspirations of going to law school and following the path of public service. This internship has provided me with the opportunity to get a firsthand look of what goes on behind the scenes and also return to my hometown of Miami, Florida to help improve the quality of our local government.

Here are a couple of my favorite things about working on the campaign this summer:

Interacting with voters

Talking to the individuals in the 27th district of Florida has led me to really understand the issues that affect everyday Americans. I never expected to encounter people so open to having a conversation about what matters to them and what can make their lives better.

Building my interpersonal skills

As I said before, this internship has required me to approach potential voters or in other words, go knock on their doors and tell them about my candidate (whether they may want to listen or not). When I started this seemed like a daunting prospect and the possibility of getting the door slammed in my face was more than a little worrisome. Although this has occurred many times, there’s a certain point when you’re just able to shrug it off. Being a business student I’m able to recognize the value of dealing with rejection and not letting it have a significant impact on my goals.

Meeting other student fellows

One of my favorite parts of working for the campaign has been meeting the other student fellows. They come from all over, from Florida natives to fellow Boston residents. They are all articulate, informed, and have a desire to bring change to our local government.

Becoming more informed overall about our electorate process

Working on a campaign has allowed me to become well versed in local election processes in a way I never was before. I consider myself pretty informed when it comes to politics, but being able to see these dynamics and procedures first hand has been incredible.