09au: What is great way to start a career in politics? If I want to be governor how should I build up my resume?
Im currently a 18 year old college student how can I prepare for a career in politics?
Please no ignorant or rude responses
Answers and Views:
Answer by sparks
99% of politicians start out by majoring in political science while in college, then they get a law degree and start working with politicians as clerks and campaign managers.
There are a lot of ways to build up your resume, and there are a lot of paths to being a Governor. Do you want to be a politician only and slowly work your way up? Do you want to start working in politics in some way and then branch out to being a politician? Do you want to be something entirely different and then once you feel like you have standing in your community put your hat in a race and work your way up? These aren’t decisions that you have to make now, but there are pluses and minuses in each of them. If you have another career then they might think you don’t know much about politics or that you are inexperienced, but at least you’d have a history to build on. If you are only a politician then people might see you as a career politician.
Either way, you need to start getting involved with local and state campaigns and political organizations. The contacts you make are going to be very important later on and they will give you a lot of opportunities. You might end up with jobs you never imagined you had through your connections. And it will teach you a lot about campaigning and things you’ll need to know if you want to run a race someday (hopefully the first lesson is that you need a good campaign manager).
You could also look at student government or even running for office in the town your college is in. There are often part-time positions, like a county commissioner or perhaps slots reserved for a student adviser to a group. My city has citizen advisory groups that would be good experience and good to put on a resume later.
You also need to make sure that you don’t do anything that would embarrass you later should you get involved in politics. Scandals in general are to be avoided. And start informing yourself about local and state issues. Follow what goes on in the legislative session and read issues in the local paper that you might otherwise gloss over as a student who may not permanently live in that city.
Ultimately being Governor is a long-term career goal and you’ll have a lot of opportunities in your life. If you know where you want to end up, you’ll just want to take that into consideration when you make decisions about each life step.
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