From October 21 to October 25, students within the United Student Body (USB) held their campaign week for the Executive Board, more commonly known as the E-Board elections. These students would take over the role of the presiding officers and become more involved in arranging the school’s activities such as spirit days, rallies, and more.

There are six possible positions on this board, including president, vice president, secretary, finance director, speaker of the house, and the united club council (UCC) chairperson. Within this week, the students who ran for these positions underwent severe conditions and rigorous campaigning in order to promote their values, goals, and overall “philosophies” for the school.

The position of president is responsible for overlooking the actions of the USB classroom, and are greatly involved in meetings that determine factors detrimental to the student body and school overall. Alina Lopez (11), one of the candidates for this position within this election expresses her initial thoughts when she began her campaign.

“I was proud of myself for participating in this campaign,” Lopez said. “I know it’s a big challenge, but I was very willing to take that opportunity if I had the chance to get the results that I wanted.”

For many candidates, including Lopez, this was a great chance to promote what they wanted to see within the school. Not only does serving on this board allow for representatives to express the ideas of other students, but it also allows them to include their own input and illustrate the changes they want to make in the community. Many campaigners wanted to ensure that students had a strong understanding of how their vote impacts themselves, as well as the campus. For Lucas Liu (10), running for speaker of the house allowed him to promote his willingness to improve the communication and engagement within the school.

“It felt like there were very few people truly voting for someone’s purpose or message, and instead they focused on the comical aspect or just voted with no true meaning behind it,” Liu said. “There was also a lot of hard work that went into preparing and setting up the campaigns. I was so tired about the beginning of the week that it was difficult to stay focused.”

This is only one example of the challenges that campaigners had to overcome during their promotion week, as they struggled with conveying their messages in such a short period of time after dedicating a great amount of time and effort into their promotions.

One of the candidates for secretary, Don Kumar (10) also expressed the conflicts that he came across during campaign week, and how he dealt with them as the week progressed.

“I think one misconception about campaigning is that you get out there and you just tell people to vote for you, and they either agree or politely decline,” Kumar said. “But the harsh reality is that there are as many people that will bring you down to those who support you while campaigning, which is a great majority of the mental struggle; having to deal with all the hate, but still moving on and focusing on the positive aspects.”

Despite these struggles, this week was a period of learning and empowerment for the candidates. Though they faced several challenges, these hurdles only improved their ability to communicate and promote their value. With this newfound experience, the six candidates chosen for a position on the E-Board will enter with new perspectives and readiness to benefit the student body and Ayala campus.