It’s about that time again. Politicians are announcing their candidacy for president, each one trying to convince the greatest number of Americans why they are worthy to lead this great nation. In the end, one candidate will take home the grand prize: the title of President of the United States of America.

At the climax of this campaign season, many people will say they did not vote and will proceed to argue why it does not matter. Unfortunately, many of these people will be college students. Although, despite what some students may think, students voting really does matter.

The vote of the college students is crucial for the future of America. There are many reasons that this is the case, but a strong enough argument can be laid out in three main points: experience, trajectory, and the issues. It is my sincere desire to help the student body at The University of Akron to understand why these three points should be enough to squeeze a few thousand votes out of this campus.

Experience is my first point. Many reading this article are probably pretty confused right about now. How does a college student have any more experience than a 35-40 year old Vice President of Marketing at some Fortune 500 company? Well, if we are talking about marketing experience, we do not. However, only we students know what it is like to be a college student right now. Only graduating seniors know how painful it is to be starting out in the current economy. Sure, others before us have experienced dire economic situations, but only a student will know the true dreadful experience. Thus, students votes count because as a student we understand what people are looking for based on the experience of being a college student in this day and age.

My second reason that my fellow students need to vote is trajectory. Let me be frank: there are a bunch of old men and women running this country and they are out of touch with what is going on in young, “average Joe” America. We are not out of touch, however. We are here. We are witnessing what is happening and we can see where our future is going. Some students do not like it and some students do. That’s OK. My point here is that only students know what this nation to be when our kids have grandkids. Only students understand the culture of this generation, and how they want to develop as a society.

Finally, the issues at play are incredibly important to our generation. Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid can suck it up for two or three more decades and then they will probably be dead. Their decisions will not destroy their lives. However, they make a great impact on ours. Whether or not marijuana gets legalized impacts our culture and our generation. Whether or not gay marriage should be recognized legally is an issue of our generation, not theirs.

What are we going to do about the absurd national student loan situation? An issue for college students to deal with, not theirs. If we want to have the direction of these issues go our way, then we are the generation that needs to vote.

I hate campaign season as much as the next guy. The advertisements get old. The politicians fighting like children does as well. Basically, it all gets old. However, the importance of how seriously our generation takes the vote cannot be exaggerated.

We will not all agree on who to vote for. I think we can agree on one thing, though, and that is the fact that we want to be heard. So I urge all students, do your research, and vote for this generation.