In the latest episode of the Democracy’s Future podcast, students at Illinois State University discuss their summer trip to Washington, D.C., to learn about the federal government.
Earlier this year, political science majors at Illinois State University were given the opportunity to take a trip to Washington, D.C., over the summer to visit noteworthy areas of the city and to observe the federal government.
Two students who went discussed their takeaways, noting the places they visited and the lessons they learned.
Senior political science major Lydia Ruot, originally from East Alton, said she was most taken aback by learning about how political polling is handled.
“We visited the Gallup headquarters,” Ruot said. “They are in charge of a lot of the public opinion polling that we’ve seen since the 1930s. It was very interesting to see what kind of things they survey Americans on month-to-month.”
“I was very interested in seeing, as well, the representative who was speaking to us; he was able to keep a very neutral stance despite our speculations on why certain things polled the way that they did,” Ruot continued.
Ruot said that while in Washington, D.C., she saw how important civic engagement really is in order for democracy to thrive.
“Democracy, as we know it, is dependent on civic engagement for its strength and its growth and I think we saw that in Washington, D.C., and I think I believe that more than ever after going on this trip,” Ruot said.
Junior political science major Tianna Ziegler, originally from Bloomington, was very interested in learning about the ATI [African Trade Investment].
“It’s a panel of women — all five women — and we basically got to speak with them about what they do and what they do with Africa,” Ziegler said. “They basically just talked about their business inquiries and how they are able to provide water and give water back to Africa and what their next steps of the future are.”
Ziegler shared that she learned far from the civic engagement trip than she has while being a student at ISU.
“I think we can all say that of all of us going on this trip, civic engagement was more about building the relationships that were there and that, personally, I learned more about civic engagement and democracy on this 7-day than I have ever learned on 2 years at Illinois State,” Ziegler said.
In our next episode, you'll hear about South Asian representation in the Bloomington-Normal area ahead of the upcoming election.
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