Politics 101
The following is a guest post by Andre, a current MBA student and a blogger for The Dirt. Andre is writing a series for Beat The GMAT to share a bluntly honest perspective of life in business school. Beat The GMATs editorial staff purposely left his article in its original raw (and entertaining) form.
In todays article, Andre shares observations about some of his peers who are running for elected positions for student groups. With out further ado, here is Andre:
Ahhh, Spring is in the air....FINALLY! Its actually getting nice here on the east coast, which is a welcome change. Birds are chirping, flowers are sprouting, and graduate students are stepping over each other to be elected in student elections.
Remember student elections? Well, basically, fellow graduates who are running pretend to care about your problems and vow to "Change the way things are done" so that they can get your vote. OR, if theyre really lazy (Which it seems is the case at my school), they dont even bother telling you what they plan on changing in student government. Your vote is basically hinging on the fact that you guys took a class together. Heres is a transcript of an actual student s pitch to me in between classes...
Random MBA student: "Hey will you vote for me in the Graduate Student elections?"
Me: "Who are you?"
Random MBA Student: "Oh, Im ________, im running for Graduate Student Senate"
Me: " Great...what does the Graduate Student Senate do?"
Random MBA Student: ........*blank stare*
Me: "I mean, you guys do stuff right? you must control the funding for us graduates right?"
Random MBA student: "Yes, right! Thats what we do! So will you vote for me?"
Me: "Well what are you going to do differently?"
Random MBA Student: *blank stare again*
...awkward silence
Random MBA student: "Cmon dude, we had Econ together, just vote for me"
Im not joking by the way...
these people have no idea what the student senate even does, they have no platform, and they want my vote?
Elections really bring out the annoying side of people. We actually had to kick a VP out of our campus organization because they basically spammed our group list to vote for them. So what do these people get if they win? Free tuition. What do you get? Good question, im still trying to figure that out.
Can I blame these people for trying to annoy the hell out of me to get free tuition? No, but people, at least pretend to care about the issues at hand. At least tell me "Why yes, I DO plan on increasing the value of your MBA, and heres how..." or "Interneships for all!" or at least take a picture with a baby and give a thumbs up.
Oh well, at least its nice outside...
Until Next Time...
Read more posts by Andre in his blog, The Dirt.