One democrat, one republican. One sophomore, one senior. Two internships with competing congressional election campaigns.  Cohabiting in student association government.  Bitter rivals?  Hardly.

Rishi Sharma ’15, an applied mathematics and history major who has an interest in education policy, and Alina Czekai ’13, a health policy major and legal studies minor, have dedicated their time this election season to local congressional campaigns.  Sharma, communications co-chair of the Students’ Association, is currently working as an intern on Congresswoman Louise Slaughter’s campaign, while Czekai, Students’ Association vice president, volunteers with County Executive Maggie Brooks. Republican Brooks and Democrat Slaughter are running competing campaigns for New York’s 25th District seat in the House of Representatives.

“It didn’t take a lot of encouragement for me to get involved. Just looking up what Louise had done, I knew she was someone I actually believed in and someone I wanted to get involved with,” said Sharma.

Specific aspects of Brooks’ style of campaigning stood out to Czekai.

“One thing that I really admire from Maggie’s campaign is her emphasis on positive campaigning, campaigning with the truth,” said Czekai.

While on opposite side of the campaign trails, Sharma and Czekai have both been interning on a regular basis since September.

“Alina and I do similar things, just on opposite ends,” said Sharma. “It’s not a consistent thing I do every single day because the campaign moves so fast.  I get exposure to a lot of different things.”

“I’ve been lucky to see a full perspective and view of what it is like to run a campaign,” said Czekai. “It’s all about seeing what your constituents need, what their problems are, and figuring out problem-solving strategies. Going to the people and saying ‘I know these are your concerns, I actually feel them too.  Let’s work together and figure out what we can do.’”

This personal focus of campaigning is pervasive on both sides of the race.

“Something that I know Louise’s staff does really well is campaign to people in a very personal way.  It’s taught me the importance of listening, really reaching out to your constituency well and making sure that their voices are heard,” said Sharma.

“It’s all about outreach, no matter what level of government you’re involved in, whether it’s student government or congressional,” said Czekai.

As a Co-Chair of Communications in SA Government, Sharma has experienced many things in Congresswoman Slaughter’s office that are applicable to his role in student government.

“If you want to be successful in politics, whether it’s in student government or in Congress like Louise is doing, you have to make sure you have a personal relationship with your constituents. She values that, I value that, a lot of student government leaders value that. It’s my job to think of creative ways and techniques about how to get the message out,” said Sharma.

Before serving as SA vice president, Czekai worked as executive historian and deputy speaker.

“All of these roles have taught me how to be comfortable in my leadership style.  Maggie really has a focus on keeping things positive and keeping things forward-looking and optimistic.  I think that definitely applies to my student government leadership role. If there’s a problem, we’re going to get through it together and we’re going to move forward,” said Czekai.

Sharma and Czekai are unusual not only because they are working on competing election campaigns, but because at the end of the day, they both come home to student government.

“Our roles work really closely together. Student government is nothing without strong communications,” said Czekai, noting the importance of reaching out to students about upcoming changes or new initiatives, and collecting information that will be helpful to the senate and executive branch.

Sharma and Czekai take their campaign internships for what they are, and leave their differences at the door.

“We use it as a point to joke about within our friendship. It doesn’t conflict with anything we have to do. We still work really well together, we are still great friends, in fact, probably even better friends,” said Sharma. “It’s funny how Maggie and Louise are competing and Alina and I are competing, but you know, it’s a healthy competition.”

Amid the good humored teasing, the two are careful to respect the integrity of each campaign.

“We don’t want to be the one that reveals any information that might give the other a competitive advantage,” said Sharma.

“I’m excited to talk to him after the race.  I think it will be really cool to see his perspective,” said Czekai.

The combination of roles possessed by both Sharma and Czekai has undoubtedly made their experiences uniquely valuable.  But on a more universal level, any motivated Rochester student can take advantage of these types of political experiences, and many have.

“I really encourage students who consider themselves to be politically minded or interested in politics to volunteer on a campaign.  I thought I understood politics and political issues, but you really don’t until you learn about it from that perspective,” said Czekai. “Whatever political side students are on, I definitely encourage them to get involved.”

Name:

What do you do now, and why did you choose this career?

I recently founded Artillery Games, and through the company, we are trying to build the next generation of browser based games.  There are three of us that founded the company, and all of us met by working at Google together.  We’ve raised an investment round already and are really excited about what we’re doing!

Prior to Artillery, I spent four years at Facebook working on partnerships and implementing them technically where I was a partnership engineer.  Likewise, I did something similar at Google for two years prior to that.  After college, I worked as a sales engineer at an optical engineering company for a year before ending up at Google in Silicon Valley.

I do what I do because I love it — I’m the luckiest guy on earth.  Technology is something that I do for fun.  In high school, when cool kids were probably going to parties, I was disassembling my computer or installing Linux.  To me, my job isn’t a job, but something I would do even if I didn’t get paid to do it.  I’m so thankful that the whole Internet thing became popular because I’m not exactly sure what I would have done with my life otherwise.

What activities were you involved in as a student, and what did you gain from them?

I founded a software development firm called Treosoft in college.  We built the now infamous Campus Club Connection.  It was a great learning experience of how to build a startup, even if we weren’t ultimately able to make it successful. Also, I founded the Business and Investment Club and played squash.  All of these were really fun and kept me busy.

What did you do immediately after graduation? How did you decide to take that path?

After Treosoft failed, I had a bit of a difficult couple months.  Ultimately, I took a sales-engineering job at an optics company in Pittsburgh, PA while trying to build another software startup in my free time.  After about a year, my brother referred me to Google and found that there were sales-engineers, so I applied and ended up with an offer a couple weeks later and moved out to the Valley!

What skills, tools, or knowledge from your major have been most useful to you since graduation?

Day to day, I don’t use the specific skills from my degrees, but most important are the tools that we learned of “how to learn.”  Meaning, the incredibly challenging problems we faced in college aren’t any different from trying to build a company.  It just takes patience, resolve, time, and tons of hard work.  My freshman year, I was pretty lazy and unmotivated, but once optics started to get really challenging my sophomore year, it taught me how to step up, learn how to work hard, and love it.

How do you balance your work and personal life?

It’s always a challenge, but I tend to burn-out easily, so I try to give my job 40-50 hours a week of focused time, meaning, completely focused with no distractions, and when I come home, I’m completely separated from the office.  In this way, I’m able to recharge.  I’m probably still “thinking” about things, but that time is for me to decompress and do other things.

Going to the gym and spending time with family have been important things that help keep my life in balance also.  I’d encourage students to develop hobbies in college that they can continue the rest of their lives.  Balance is important.

How are you still connected with the University?

I have hosted alumni get-togethers in the Bay Area in the past, and I have helped interview students.  Now days, I try to attend all of the alumni get togethers.  It’s great to meet all of the bright young students graduating from the alma matar.

What advice do you have for current students?

Tough question … I’d say, “explore everything that you can, and see if you can find something that you love.  Don’t chase money, but chase your passion.  If you can work on something that you love every day, it doesn’t feel like work anymore.  If you happen to become successful at it, that is great, but even if you don’t, you just spent your life working on something that you love!”