<p>I'm going to NJ Boys State tomorrow, and was wondering if anyone else if going/has gone? I'm looking to try and get to as high of an office as I can, and am looking for any information I can get.</p>
<p>How much do you already need to know about government? How well-read should I be on current events? What are the speeches about? Do they give you a topic, and you have to hope you are already knowledgeable on the subject?</p>
<p>How was the experience overall?</p>
<p>^^^ I'm a little nervous as you can tell. I'll be spending the rest of the day reading up on it to prepare.</p>
<p>PBS and PGS (Palmetto Boys State and Palmetto Girls State) are a bit different from each other and I’m not sure how different those programs are from NJ. I’ve heard that South Carolina has one of the better programs in the country as well as one of the larger ones. (900 boys; 550 girls) I don’t know if that is true… but those are the numbers. We started the week off with 556 girls.</p>
<p>I say that whatever you put into it is what you get out of it. I went in knowing nothing about government, but I ran for everything I could and tried to make as many friends as I could. </p>
<p>For me, it was a life-changing experience. I made so many friends there that were not judgmental and they gave me a lot of confidence. I ran for like …six offices and lost every single one of them, yet no one made me feel bad about it. The girls were really supportive and so were the counselors. </p>
<p>I didn’t learn much about government. I think I learned more about public speaking, meeting/greeting people, self-confidence, friendship, and sisterhood than anything else.</p>
<p>Last night, every girl in my hall was crying. Everyone was so emotionally charged. Everyone had a story to tell. I became closer to the girls in my city in a week than I did with a lot of kids that I have known my entire life. I heard that the story was true on the PBS side, as well.</p>
<p>If anything… I recommend this:
Run for every office you can.
Make as many friends as you can by talking to as many people that you do not know as you can.
Stay away from the people you already know. You want to make new friends. Trust me, it is totally worth it.
Try to have a positive attitude. Last night, 28/30 girls said that they did not want to even go to PGS, but they did it for college applications. All 28 of those girls ended up being glad that they came and said that it really was life-changing.</p>