First Impressions

By Zoë Brew, SFSGA Co-Chair, Spring 2011

I remember sitting in orientation, numbed from the endless stream of information being catapulted at me…And then there was SGA, wearing their buttons, heralding their cause, cajoling the masses with their presentation. It took me approximately 10 seconds to form an opinion—driven by stereotypes and residual high school night terrors, I knew “the kind of people that joined student government” and I was not one of “them.” I’d leave this exercise to the cheerleaders, the debate team, the “joiners.” My pseudo-intellectual, renegade sensibilities didn’t mesh with the SGA caricature I had created. I held onto this idea for a year before I ventured to the proverbial “dark side” and realized that SGA was anything but two-dimensional. Sure there were (and probably always will be) limitations, but here was a group of individuals with an altruistic agenda.

It’s very easy to be drawn in and believe the pervading ideas—everyone needs a despot, and SGA makes for an easy target—the rumors of nepotism and flagrant abuse of power that is wielded behind that closed door. Unfortunately, the truth is much less interesting than our collective imagination.