“Beep beep beep beep”, Heather woke with a start, annoyed and cranky to be starting yet another day of classes. She started to get ready, and donned her black skirt, shirt, and heels for her business class. Today was only Friday and it seemed like it would take years to get to Saturday morning. She had a wonderful luncheon with her fellow CR (College Republican) friends in which they would all watch ‘Meet the Press’ and have the opportunity to meet Bob Schaffer, the man who was raised in Colorado and was now running for the senate against Mark Udall. When Friday finally ended she went to sleep early giddy with excitement for the day to follow. Getting to the luncheon took longer than she thought by metro but she finally arrived with about a minute to spare. Most people were already there, some looked like they were ready for work, others looked like tired volunteers working on the campaign trail, either way she was happy and excited to meet all of them. Smart, sarcastic, and witty banter was all that could be heard over the sound of ‘Meet the Press’ in the background, of course with the occasional cheering and laughing when Bob made Mark look like a recent high school graduate with only a slight interest in politics! Eventually Bob showed up and all the conversations were wonderful, it was right before he left that the GW CR’s were invited to go to Colorado, all expenses paid, to work on the campaign. Heather had no idea how she felt about this offer but had to decide soon.

Being raised in a foreign country by American Republican parents, never really allowed Heather the chance to be politically active. She was raised, and strongly believed in the same values that her parents held for themselves, but Hong Kong, China was not really the place where one can express much of their political views other than sending in their absentee ballad back to the United States. (Unfortunately, she was only old enough to do this by the time she had already left Asia to move to the United States to start her college career.) In college she made friends with great people who shared similar values but were much surer of not only where they stood personally, but also of the political environment that surrounded them. Although at first this type of environment can be quite intimidating, eventually it turned into the fuel that would help jumpstart Heather’s new found confidence and passion for something she didn’t even know she enjoyed. She decided that an all expense paid trip to Colorado with her friends, time away from classes, and a chance to try working, not only at something she had never been exposed to before, but also a chance to work in general, sounded like too good of an opportunity to pass up. It was then that Heather gave notice to her school that she would be missing a few days of classes to go work on the campaign trail. Three weeks later she left for the trip. Whilst in Colorado she went signing, phone banked for hours each day, got to hang out and discuss politics with complete strangers, and on top of spending time with and getting to know new people, she even got to sit down and talk with Bob Schaffer a couple of times. Sad to say, the Bob Schaffer campaign lost to Mark Udall, but even with this loss, Heather only grew in experience and didn’t let this scare her off from similar opportunities in the future. She later signed onto the Saxby Chambliss campaign in Georgia, and even gave up most of her Thanksgiving break to help ensure that we’d have enough elected republicans in the Senate to act as a filibuster. After what seemed like endless amounts of sleepless work filled days, Heather was finally able to attend a ‘Victory party’ in which her party had won. This was her “ah ha” moment, she had been passionate and unafraid to jump off a cliff, go to another state, and try working for something that she wasn’t a complete professional at, and she realized it was work like this that got you to the point where you were good and felt comfortable at doing something. She had fun working, and it had actually paid off. She returned with a new sense of self-worth and self-confidence. Heather has yet to have a paying job, but now felt like she had more of the skills and confidence to really go out and try and find a job she could have fun with while still being challenged by it. Talking to all those people over the phone, (yes, even the nasty ones), made it fun to network and talk to anybody she met. She went from being nervous to having to meet friends of her friends, to talking to everybody in line at Starbucks, and whoever sat next to her on the plane. The Heather we can see now is much surer of her self and therefore has a lot more fun with herself as well.

Heather’s biggest challenge was just getting out there and seeing that she really could have fun while working, and realizing that you didn’t have to be the best at what you were trying to accomplish to just get out there and attempt the work. But now comes other professional challenges. For example; she just came into college deciding on International Business as her major and Mandarin as her minor because it sounded safe and sounded like something she could do, now came the time for her to really evaluate what it was that she wanted to learn about during her college career. It also came time for her to finally just put herself out there and try to find a job. It didn’t even have to be one that was perfect or that she really enjoyed, she just needed the confidence enough to get out there, apply, go through the process, and realize that she could do this, even if she didn’t succeed right away.

Heather had always had issues with self-confidence, anything from singing, playing the piano in public, or even just raising her hand in class would give her the jitters. Going campaigning, meeting tons of new people in an unfamiliar setting, and even dealing with unhappy people she didn’t know that really weren’t happy to see or hear from her over the phone, actually helped her realize that it’s not the end of the world if you fail at some things, because eventually she realized that her hard work would pay off. She also realized that if she put her self out there, there were going to be people that she really did enjoy meeting who felt mutual about the experience. She gained a great new sense of herself, even though there’s always still room for growth and change, and she made a few lifelong friends along the way. Heather is definitely not where she needs to be, but hey, she’s still just a sophomore in college and has a couple of years left before heading out into the ‘real world’. She just needs to get started in the mean time!