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19 students traveled to Manchester, New Hampshire to work on presidential campaigns during the New Hampshire primary.

“They would work hard for at least one candidate, maybe encounter a different candidate, work a little bit for them, knock on doors, but then really get to see a wide variety of candidates,” Chair of Philosophy and Political Science Scott McLean said.

McLean has been bringing students in his “presidential elections campaigns” class to New Hampshire primaries for the last 20 years every four years for each presidential election.

“The main thing I want them to learn is what goes into a presidential campaign,” McLean said. “What’s the strategy? Why do they need people to knock on doors? Why is it by all measures the most effective way to get people to change their vote or to vote?”

The students had the opportunity to canvas for candidates of their choice and attend rallies. Some of them even watched the democratic debate in person. This experience gave them a front row seat to what it is like to work on a campaign.

“It was unlike anything I probably could have ever experienced,” sophomore Nick Ciampanelli said after helping Andrew Yang’s campaign team. “I was actually out in the field seeing what essentially putting paper to the real world and seeing how the primaries worked, operated and how campaigns strategized in order to maximize to voters.”

This inspired some students to want to run for office some day.

“I think that being there and learning from all the different political candidates inspired me to one day run for office,” sophomore Ambar Pagan said after working with both Elizabeth Warren’s and Pete Buttigiege’s campaigns.

This experience also made the students want to encourage their classmates to attend something like this, vote and get a better understanding of the election process.

“I think that everyone should go and work on this because getting a foot on the ground and going to these doors and meeting these people, you learn a very good value in what kind of work goes into these campaigns,” sophomore Haktan Ceylan said after assisting Pete Buttigiege’s team. “It teaches you a lot about your patriotism to this country as well.”

McLean plans to continue taking students to the New Hampshire primaries in the future. He also hopes to bring student reporters along to cover the event and what their fellow students are doing in real time.