Students Unhappy with Drawing Out of Presidential Election

Story posted November 7, 2020 in CommRadio, News by Andre Magaro

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State students have had their eyes glued to their respective screens all semester. However, this week it seemed more students were viewing election maps and network coverage rather than Zoom lectures.

While the results from Tuesday’s presidential election continue to be calculated, the patience of many Americans, and especially the student body in State College, is wearing thin.

All week long, students have felt an overwhelming amount of stress as they await to hear official word as to who will serve as America’s commander in chief through the next four years.

Senior Avery Olah-Reiken notes that he’s been tuned in non-stop all week long and has even been sleep deprived trying to keep up with the pivotal news.

“Even though they release results regularly, it’s not as quickly as I would’ve hoped,” Olah-Reiken said. “It’s frustrating to wait so long to find out who’s going to be the next president.”

The elongated process haseven started to affect Olah-Reiken’s focus at times when it comes to classes.

“It’s been tough to pay attention in class,” Olah-Reiken said. “I’ve still been going to class and still been paying attention, but obviously the election’s been a top priority for I think everybody this week.”

This added concern over the election has caused students to try and juggle staying informed with plenty of other academic priorities—coursework, chief among them.

“It’s tough trying to juggle watching the news, and then also getting all my schoolwork done,” Olah-Reiken said. “I’ve been able to do it successfully, but it’s definitely beena challenge.”

Olah-Reiken isn’t alone in this struggle. Freshman Caoilin Hall adds classes haven’t been the same for her at all this past week, with all attention shifting toward the race for the White House.

“It’s definitely hard to sit down and do work,” Hall said. “I find myself looking at the updated count over and over. We’re talking about it in all our classes. It’s just kind of taken over everything.”

As it stands, Democratic nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden appears to be in prime position to win the presidency over incumbent President and Republican nominee Donald Trump.

Sophomore Penn Schmidt, like many students, is looking to be optimistic about the future of the presidency.

“I think [Biden] is going to change a lot of stuff that’s been going on for the last four years,” Schmidt said. “I’m going to support whoever is the president.”

While the election has yet to be officially called, Penn State students will hope to have closure on the matter soon and get back into the regular swing of things.

 

Andre Magaro is a junior majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email ajm7362@psu.edu.

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Andre Magaro

Senior / Broadcast Journalism

Andre Magaro is a senior from Enola, Pennsylvania majoring in broadcast journalism. He is one of CommRadio’s two student general managers. It’s there that Andre does play-by-play broadcasting of Penn State sporting events, and helps with the everyday operation of Penn State’s student-run radio station Andre is also a sports anchor and reporter for the Centre County Report, in addition to doing play-by-play for B1G+ as well. In the past, he has completed a broadcast internship in the Northwoods League for the Kalamazoo Growlers, provided feature articles and game day social media coverage of Penn State Men’s Soccer for Penn State Athletics, and produced articles on Penn State sports for Armchair Media. He can be contacted via email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and on Twitter @andre_magaro.