Every election season, it is difficult to walk through a college campus without being harassed about voter registration. As a voter registration tabler myself, I do sincerely feel for others when I have to yell out “Are you registered to vote?” as students are trying to go about their business.

After that short length of time, concern about politics seems to wither away. Colleges like Bucknell fail to continue any advocacy about pressing political issues, allowing them to feel distant and inapplicable. As a result, students return back to a state of political apathy. 

There are countless reasons that students might feel apathetic toward politics, especially when they are not being shoved in their face anymore. However, I attribute Bucknell’s passivity to three primary explanations: distance, political stigma and perceived irrelevance. 

Distance from major urban areas is the most obvious explanation. Being in the middle of rural, central Pennsylvania, we are able to shield ourselves from knowledge about major political issues and demonstrations. Although it is not completely inaccessible, the face-to-face experience that urban students have by witnessing protesters on their campuses and living close to major government headquarters naturally engulfs them into the political experience– whether they are interested or not. These students accidentally gain knowledge through experience, while students at Bucknell must deliberately seek out knowledge in order to develop adequate comprehension. Even then, Bucknell students will never grasp the extent of these political issues if they are not placed in an exposure-based setting. Therefore, if students do not have a predisposition to research politics, it is unlikely that they will develop one in a remote setting like Bucknell, where gaining accurate knowledge requires deliberate effort.

Additionally, there is a huge stigma surrounding politics across the country. If you say the name of any president from the last 15 years, there will be someone on standby to tell you they “don’t want to get political.” As a political science student, at least one in five people visibly cringe when I tell them my major. I believe this stigma could stem from smaller things, like trying to avoid a Thanksgiving-dinner-like discussion about politics with your uncle who thinks he is still in the 1950s, but I also think this could be more deeply rooted, connecting to patriarchal structures where women may feel hesitant to voice their political opinions due to historically masculine responses that dismiss or undermine their viewpoints. Regardless of the reason, the idea that something bad will happen if politics are brought up is likely an explanation for why people choose to completely ignore the subject.

Perceived irrelevance stems from the prior distance explanation. Students at Bucknell simply do not see any changes occurring in their day to day life, so they have no reason to want to engage with it. I believe this could be attributed to the homogeneity of students on campus, where the student body is largely white and wealthy. Any changes to their day to day lives, like price changes or legislation about marginalized groups, is unlikely to be felt in a meaningful way. For that reason, they might not even see politics as something that has to do with them, making them apathetic to the idea of learning about it or taking their own stance. Why do extra work when you don’t really have to?

Political apathy is a problem everywhere, but its presence is abundantly clear at Bucknell. I urge more students to research current political affairs to better understand the direction our country is headed towards. It is easy to make blind judgements about the government when one has minimal understanding of what is going on and why. However, I see the development of political opinions as central to the act of critical thinking, and I think all college students could benefit from taking a step in the direction of seeing where your ideologies lie. It allows for deeper consideration and understanding of the diverse perspectives of others, while acting as a means to learn more about yourself as well.