With the election just weeks away, USC students have been involved in presidential debate watch parties, anti-war protests and voter registration drives.

A handful of students have also participated in political discussions. The College Bowl program, organized by nonprofit organization Unify America, pairs individuals with others of differing political viewpoints to discuss their opinions on prevalent issues. 

The College Bowl program uses an algorithm that collects information on a participant’s region, age and political affiliation to pair them with an individual who contrasts them in these categories. Each student’s political affiliations are not shared with one another prior to or during the discussion to prevent assumptions from influencing the students’ approach to the conversation. 

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Sherissa Wu, a junior majoring in political science, participated in the College Bowl program last week. 

“Because we all live in our own echo chambers and algorithms that we don’t often interact with the other side except for criticizing it,” Wu said. 

Wu was paired with a student from a religious institution in the South. They failed to see eye to eye on abortion rights and gun regulation. She said that although both of them had some strong-held beliefs that ultimately remained unchanged, it was clear that her partner made an effort to hear what she had to say.

“There are so many issues that are not black and white, or concrete, and so it’s nice that if you’re a liberal or a conservative, a Democrat or a Republican — you can both find your own position on things, and agree that some issues may be inherently neutral for both sides, or that they aren’t always political issues and are still worth having a discussion about,” Wu said.

Unify America provides icebreaker questions to get the conversation started, followed by 18 statements that describe potential goals for the United States.

The 18 goal statements were chosen during the founding of Unify America. During the summer of 2019, the founder, Harry Nathan Gottlieb, took a road trip through the southern U.S. to ask various individuals what they believed were appropriate goals for the nation. A list of 18 statements was then derived and is used in current College Bowl sessions.

“The end goal is starting to strengthen students’ civic muscles at what we call ‘the civic gym,’”said Molly Ostrem, the Community Manager at Unify America. She said in hosting the College Bowl, Unify America aims to foster improvement in several skills, including active listening, critical thinking and articulating arguments.

Once the conversation is concluded, students may choose to share their political affiliations. Ostrem said that students can often be surprised to realize that they had agreed on so many matters despite their differing political affiliations.

Steph Domond, the student programs manager at the Center for the Political Future, said that when it comes to conversing about prevalent issues, diversity of opinion is beneficial.

“I love people getting involved and focusing on the issues at hand, and feeling like they have a voice,” Domond said. “One of the worst things you can have is people feeling like their voices are being stifled. That’s when people move towards doing antidemocratic things. That’s when you have a little more civil unrest.”

At USC, College Bowl was introduced in Fall 2022 by the CPF to promote their goals of bipartisanship, inclusivity, diversity of voices and civil conversations. Participation in the program is a requirement for Directed Governmental and Political Leadership Internship and Directed International Relations Field Study. However, participation among students is encouraged regardless of what classes they’re taking, what majors they’re pursuing or how politically opinionated they are.

Domond said a common misconception is that some people aren’t interested in politics. He said the issues politicians deal with influence everyone’s lives in one way or another. 

“One of the big things that we’re trying to do at the CPF now is kind of push back against [the tendency to be disinterested in politics] a little bit, and try to get people to understand that it’s really easy to get involved in politics, and that there’s probably something you that you care about that you should have a discussion about,” Domond said.

Wu said that it can feel frustrating when she hears peers remark that they aren’t interested in political matters.

“I feel like people often just opt out, but if you can opt out then why not opt in? I kinda wish some people would be more open to learning about it even if they didn’t know anything about it before,” Wu said.