One of the benefits of going to a large university consisting of approximately 30,000 students is that the school attracts politicians, such as Barack Obama, as well as big concert headliners. Obama gave two speeches at the University of Colorado, Boulder before his election last fall. I was lucky to attend both of these speeches which were free for students, while my friends who chose to go to smaller universities did not get the same opportunity to see a presidential candidate speak at their campus.
I went to see President Obama speak on Sunday, September 2, 2012. Obama, along with the speakers before him, kept reiterating how important it is for students to participate in our democracy by, if nothing else, voting. Obama spent a lot of time addressing issues that directly affect international and domestic students. Obama’s goals for his second term centered around the idea “go forward, not backward,” meaning his goals and ideas lead to progress, as opposed to his challenger, Mitt Romney whose ideas he characterized as backward, especially on social issues such as marriage equality, healthcare, and family planning issues.
Obama spent a lot of time talking about how he wants to keep interest rates on loans down while Romney, on the other hand, wants to raise the interest rates on student loans and cut funding for education.
Obama kept stressing how important it is for students to decide their stance on these issues even if you were unable to vote, and vote if you were able to. He concisely stated facts about what each candidate would do if elected which allowed the audience to form their own opinions and decide for themselves who should be president.
International students as well as American citizens attended his speech. Many international students here at the University of Colorado, Boulder, chose to get involved during the 2012 presidential campaign even though they are not American citizens. International students came to hear Obama speak not only because they were interested in American politics, but also because the next president would affect university funding and educational and immigration policies for the next four years. Many international students volunteered for either Romney’s or Obama’s political campaigns and traveled around campus advocating for what they believed in and recruiting people to vote, even though they themselves did not have that opportunity. Through becoming involved with this political process, international and domestic students learned how Americans exercise their rights as citizens in our democracy.
