Elections: A Fresh Look

Alex Bees, one of our beloved Tab freshers, gives his take on the madness that is elections…..


What do the elections actually mean to me as a Fresher? Should I really care? With the whole election buzz spreading around campus I’m beginning to wonder how the whole system applies to us newbies.

As a Fresher I’m not really that bothered, with hardly any lectures and work to do, opportunities to get smashed most nights and few consequences of being lazy; I don’t need to have an interest in SUSU…yet. I don’t mean to be ignorant, just at the moment I don’t see why I should care and having been here for less than 6 months that’s not enough time to understand how my/our/your Union works.

With yesterday’s news that the votes received so far have only been half as much as this time last year, maybe it’s not just the Freshers who aren’t interested. And after being pitched to by candidates in lectures, bombarded by speeches on concourse and even had them knock on my door like Jehovah’s Witnesses I can now see why all students, not just Freshers don’t pay attention.

Maybe in my short time here I haven’t seen any issues or anything that I think should be changed. Perhaps those students who do take this whole business seriously are the ones who have been affected by flaws in the current system of the university, and consequently vote for those who promise to offer a solution to these issues. So as a Fresher I haven’t seen these problems yet, something which I guess can only be noticed through time. We’re not avoiding SUSU or voting, we just need time to realise what it means to us.

So here’s a message to all those SUSU bandits: let Freshers get on with it. Students will have an interest in SUSU when they choose to and let them go to the Union when they feel like it, not SUSU actively trying to appeal to everyone.