Since I came to Boston University a year and a half ago, I’ve spent a lot of time debating which is worse: being a Yankee fan in Boston or being a Republican in Boston. I’ve come to realize that I like both.

Neither of these things really isolates me. New Yorkers are, to say the least, well represented at this school. And even though the Red Sox won a World Series since 1918, the record still shows who the better team is.

Believe it or not, conservatives are pretty well represented on this campus too; maybe not so much among the faculty, but at least among the student body. I named my column The Campus Conservative because I’m just the only conservative who has been writing a weekly political column for The Daily Free Press, not because I’m the only conservative on the entire campus.

There are plenty Republicans in Massachusetts too. Although it was only 37 percent of the votes cast, more than a million people in Massachusetts voted for George W. Bush for president in 2004. In addition, perhaps to balance out their liberal legislature, Massachusetts voters elected a conservative Republican governor. To finish off the baseball comparison, despite the dominance of the Democratic Party in Massachusetts, look at which party controls the White House and Congress.

The truth is that conservatism in Massachusetts is alive and well, and there are plenty of opportunities for conservative students in Boston. Through the BU College Republicans, I’ve gotten to meet a lot of Republicans – students, professors, politicians and people who work in the governor’s office and for the Massachusetts Republican Party. I’ve been fortunate enough to meet and talk to Gov. Mitt Romney on three occasions, to meet First Lady Ann Romney twice and to meet Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey twice. Say what you want about their politics, but they’re all really nice people.

I spent 14 hours a week this semester working as an intern in the Governor’s Office of External Relations, the office that answers the governor’s mail and phone calls and addresses constituents’ concerns. It’s a close call, but I’d say that Gov. Romney gets slightly more hate mail than I do. His fans, however, vastly outnumber my own, as they should. I also did an internship for one month during this semester at the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University for a paper for Professor Betty Zisk’s Informal Political Practices class.

I used to have the attitude that internships were a waste of time when organizations get free labor from college kids in return for giving them such valuable life experiences as learning to order lunch and to refill the paper in the Xerox machine. The internships I’ve had this semester, however, have totally changed my mind. To anyone interested in politics who knows how to budget time or wants to learn through experience, I highly recommend an internship in a government office or in a political interest group. Although I have done my share of scanning and photocopying, I’ve also learned more than I could have imagined from these internships.

By saying that being a columnist this semester was a wonderful opportunity for which I’m truly grateful, I might sound clichéd and phony, but it is absolutely true. I want to thank all of the people at The Daily Free Press, especially Jaron, who is an amazing editor, and Dominick, who schlepped all the way to the State House to take my picture at work.

And, just as much as I appreciated this chance to share my opinions with DFP readers, I also appreciated the chance to hear your opinions on the issues as well. Despite receiving a lot of hate mail, as in, “I think you’re stupid and ignorant and offensive because you’re a Republican,” (Is it any wonder conservatives are winning the war of ideas?), I’ve also had people write to me with some very intelligent arguments, whether for my side or against my side, that I had not necessarily considered before. The students on this campus have expertise in an incredible range of topics, and I’m really thankful to all the people who shared some of their knowledge with me.

I realize that there are some people whose lives to do not revolve around reading the news, watching C-SPAN and discussing potential 2008 presidential candidates (Gov. Romney and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush are my top picks, but at this point, I have a bad feeling that the next president of the United States will be John McCain). Occasionally I’m jealous of these people and think that they’re better off than us politically obsessed. I don’t believe that not voting is a sin. If you don’t care about politics, good for you. If you don’t feel the need to personally get involved in influencing policy, it probably just means you’re pretty happy with how your life is now.

If, on the other hand, you are interested in politics but haven’t gotten involved, for whatever reason, I invite you to jump into the fray. Conservative students shouldn’t feel intimidated to express their opinions when they’re in the minority. They’re not going to lose friends over it, their grades shouldn’t suffer from it and they’re not going to lose the respect of any reasonable people from arguing well-thought-out conservative views. And liberals: keep fighting back so our arguments don’t get sloppy like yours. Don’t let us get away with anything.

It’s obvious from reading my column that I love the kind of no-holds-barred, sling-all-the-mud-you-want, jump-up-and-down-on-the-table-screaming-at-your-opponent type of passionate political debate. But I want to end my final column by cautioning you to remember that, even if, like me, it’s your major and will be your whole entire career, it’s just politics.

Tara Stroll, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, has been a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at [email protected].