By Kyra-lin Hom

In my graduate degree program, I've been studying topics like national, domestic and homeland security – you know, light reading. So far the only truth that holds across all of these fields is that the nuances are complex, opaque and so convoluted that the extent of my learning at this point is basically grasping just how much I don't know. And that's only one specific area of government.

I'm, arguably, an adult. I file my own taxes. I started a company with a group of friends. I moved away from home, am getting married this summer, and even officially now have my own health insurance (let me tell you how much fun getting Obamacare was not). Yet, embroiled as I am in the cogs of my own life, I don't know the names of my mayor or governor off the top of my head. I don't know the identity of my congressman/woman. I can't even name with full confidence the positions of the President's cabinet.

In my defense, I'm terrible with names, have been moving around recently, and generally rely on Google for that kind of thing. But even I'll admit those are weak excuses. This is the kind of information we, as functioning, contributing members of a democratic society, should just know. And yet most of us don't. Most of us don't need to know it in our daily lives, and most of us never learn(ed) it in school.

Skimming through the three branches and the electoral college in high school is hardly a demanding education on federal procedure. And thirty-second sound bytes and plastic smiles aren't exactly a who's who of local government. Somehow the political, civil and legal structures of our government have been washed out of the public education system. It's been relegated instead to the realms of the college political science major or grad school specialty. I contend it's knowledge we should all have.

Unfortunately, we can rail at ourselves all day about getting and staying informed, but truthfully how many of us want to take those few precious moments of free time we have to study a primer on American government? Watching House of Cards on Netflix only counts for half points.

So those of use beyond the school system may be doomed pending an exertion of pointed willpower, but what about those still in school? What's stopping us from shifting political science back into the grade school classroom? And I mean real political science, not memorize-the-Presidents political science. It might not be the most scinillating subject ever, but lots of people say that about math too, and no one's arguing that we shouldn't be teaching mathematics.

This 'epiphany' (though I cringe to call it such) moment came for me when I was asked to compare my opinions of homeland security from before and after one of my classes. I realized that prior to my class I had no opinion. I hadn't given it enough thought to have had one. For such an important topic, that's just sad.

The inner workings of our government shouldn't be special, advanced knowledge. Instead it should be widely understood and commonplace. We're a voting society. Let's be an informed voting society.