For senior Maia Bennett the last month has been nothing but busy. Bennett began interning for the Bernie Sanders campaign at the beginning of August. She will continue interning until the caucuses on Feb 1.

Bennett’s internship is held at the Marion field office of the Sanders campaign. She says that she doesn’t do a lot of traveling besides going to help out at local events that are held in Cedar Rapids or Marion.

“I have learned a lot of interpersonal skills, how to educationally talk to people about politics, how you can’t win everything and how to not let that bother you,” Bennett said.

From this experience Bennett says that it has assured her that politics is completely the direction that she wants to take in her life. The reason that Bennett decided to participate in this internship is because she is planning on studying political science and statistical economics once she gets to college. Bennett wants to pursue an eventual career in politics or the government.

The time commitment for Bennett is quite heavy. She is usually at the office 10 to 15 hours a week, minimum. Bennett is at the office every day for at least three hours.

Bennett’s internship has many parts to it. She staffs all of the local Sanders events and rallies, helps organize phone banks, trains volunteers and does polling data entries. Along with all of that she says that she also trains others to do phone banking and go knocking on doors to raise awareness of the campaign.

“I have met Bernie twice. The first time, I was able to get in touch with the Iowa Campaign Manager, Becker, who got me the internship,” Bennett said. “The second time, I was able to talk to him about his campaign progress and how grateful I was about being able to assist in his campaign and how he helped me get the position I have.”

Bennett says she definitely thinks Sanders would make a good president because besides his views aligning with her political views, his history of fighting for the same things that he is still fighting for today shows that he will be a committed and trustworthy president.