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[Dr. Miner] Hi. I'm Dr. Jon Miner, Professor of Political Science at the University of North Georgia. The Georgia Political Science Association, or GPSA, is the professional association for political science practitioners and educators in Georgia with members from the public, private and academic sectors.

Each November, the GPSA holds its annual conference in Savannah. This past Fall, several of our political science students had the somewhat unique opportunity to attend this high-level academic conference, not merely as observers, but as full-fledged panel participants. This paper that we wrote was a semester-long research project in my Political Economy of the Middle East course. There are approximately 25 students in the class and we gathered data on the effects of the Arab Spring over the last ten years or so. And then compiled and analyzed that data, and seven of the students wrote a research paper that we presented at the conference.

Six attended the conference and presented, and three of them are here today to discuss their experiences there.

[Annabelle Groene] Hi, my name is Annabelle Groene. I'm from Oswego High School in Oswego, NY and I'm an International Affairs major with a concentration in the Middle East.

[Lilli Di Virgilio ] Hey, I'm Lilli Di Virgilio. I graduated from Gilmer High School in Ellijay, GA and I'm a Political Science major with a minor in Criminal Justice.

[Luke Almond] Hey I'm Luke Almond. I'm from Royston, GA. I graduated from Franklin County High School and I'm a Political Science major with a minor in Business Administration.

[Annabelle] My experience at the conference really opened my eyes to the professional world of politics and sharing research that you have done.

[Lilli] So, it gave me some opportunities to work on a project with a group of individuals to give a really good piece of work, to better my understanding of Middle Eastern politics.

[Luke] I enjoyed the aspect a lot of learning about academic research and learning what it takes to be a good researcher in the realm of political science. I feel like that's going to be invaluable for my future.

[Annabelle] 100% [Lilli] Absolutely. [Luke] yes.

[Annabelle] It's super rewarding having our name on something, for other people to give us feedback.

[Lilli] It gave us the opportunity to work with each other and get to know each other on a whole new basis. Between just students around the state of Georgia, and our faculty and just our department, getting to know them and work with them.

[Luke] I think it's important to do things like professional conferences, and academic conferences, just because of you need that type of exposure in college so that you know where you want to go, what you want to do, and where it can take you if you continue that career, and gives you more insight to how you want to continue, where you want to go, what you want to research, and if the field of academics and research is for you.