In the Field: Interning with the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG)
This post was written by Carly Richardson, a junior studying sociology and political science and a Department of Sociology and Anthropology student ambassador.
North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to empower young people and provide them with the necessary tools and information to get their voices heard on issues that affect them. NCPIRG works at colleges and universities all over the state and has recently established a chapter on NC State’s campus. Topics of interest include environmental justice, reducing the cost of college, and, particularly this semester, getting out the youth vote. NC State’s chapter has been working hard on its New Voters Project that is based on the fact that our generation is the largest and most diverse yet — but turns out to vote at the lowest rates. NCPIRG’s work seeks to change that.
Majoring in sociology has informed a lot of my actions with NCPIRG and the types of outreach we do. Looking at voter registration efforts through a sociological lens allows for more targeted outreach, particularly to groups or individuals who have been historically underrepresented — like the youth — as well as groups who face unique barriers.
My involvement with this organization began when my summer study abroad trip was canceled due to COVID-19. Still wanting to make use of my time away from school, I decided to apply to intern with NCPIRG. I then spent my summer phone banking, doing direct voter outreach, and learning how to organize from the ground up. What really made the work tangible for me was one video call meeting we had with everyone in the internship — all 300 some of us — and seeing everyone scrolling through the spreadsheet I had worked on. It contained all the contact information for various groups on various campuses. Knowing that what I had spent so much time working on was making it easier to get people registered, and then seeing the effectiveness reflected in the number of people who had registered as a direct result of our work, made it feel real and meaningful.
Based on that moment, and all the experiences I had this summer, I came into the school year knowing that I wanted to stay involved and continue to do this important work. When I was asked to help begin and lead the new NC State chapter, I was thrilled to be able to expand our reach directly to my peers on campus. Since the beginning of the semester, we have become an official student organization, grown our chapter five-fold, hosted fun civic engagement events, and made real progress toward our goal of registering 1,000 students to vote using our voter tool ncstudentvote.org.
Additionally, we offer many opportunities for NC State students to get involved with our work through an internship program that can be used for course credit, volunteering, or just by attending one of our virtual events. Students in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, in particular, are able to bring a unique perspective as for where to direct outreach and how to navigate other factors that influence turnout.
