From News 8 Austin:
One summer program isn’t exactly typical. Rather, it's a chance to learn how to campaign, taught by those who do it best."You only have 30 seconds in a television ad to tell your story," Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, told a group of about 20 students at his campaign academy.
It's a story some of the students hope to craft themselves one day as they learn campaign tricks of the trade. Strama has conducted the class every summer before the midterm election, since 2004.
Nikhil Kumar came to campaign academy with what he said was no knowledge of how politics work.
"This campaign academy has really opened up my eyes, gotten my feet wet in the whole political process," Kumar said.
Now, the young student aspires to serve his state someday.
"The whole rush of running for state office — maybe being a state senator one day, or running for it. Or governor one day, I think I might do that," he said.
Over a six-week period, students learn from elected officials, get the nuts and bolts of modern politics and practice a campaign pitch on each other, before hitting the streets to campaign for real.
"I've never canvassed before. I didn't really know how that worked, pretty much everything I'm learning is new to me," St. Edward's University senior Elise LeGros said.
It's a new process their teacher is hopeful produces a product of future politicians.
"I don't know if I'll ever do anything big in politics, but I know that of the 100 kids who have come through this program over the last four election cycles, many of them are going to make a big impact on the state of Texas, and that may be what I'm most proud of in my political career," Strama said.
Both high school and college students can participate in the campaign academy. Students are required to submit an essay about why they're interested in politics.
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