If there is one thing that both Republican and Democratic students at Eastern can agree on when it comes to President Donald Trump’s near-year in office, it is that it has been unique, to say the least.

The business mogul turned commander-in-chief has drummed up no shortage of controversy around himself, from his always-active twitter page to the controversies surrounding him regarding Russia and North Korea.

Because of this, Trump’s time in office has commanded the attention and criticism from both parties.

Eastern students such as student senator and “conservative-leaning” senior Randy Prince have taken notice of the things Trump has done in office, but note that his lack of political experience has made his time in office unorthodox.

“There (are) a lot of things that he really needs to reign in. You can tell he is not a politician,” Prince said. “The way he is running the White House is the way he was running his business.”

Prince gives Trump a little leeway when it comes to some of his atypical behavior in office because he is still adapting from the business world to the political field.

“When you run a business, no one really pays attention to what you are doing. I bet you Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, they’ve done some weird things behind-the-scenes but no one notices, they just look at their business,” Prince said. “But now (Trump) is in a public office, and he’s not catching on to the fact there is a lot of stuff you can’t do when you’re in the public office.”

Not all students are willing to give Trump the same benefit of the doubt though.

Sophomore Sam Reiss, president of the EIU College Democrats, described Trump’s time in office thus far as a failure, saying he has not gotten anything done in office.

“Just looking at it from a purely non-partisan (standpoint), like what has he accomplished? There really hasn’t been anything,” Reiss said. “They have tried with healthcare, they are trying with tax reform, but there really hasn’t been anything he has been able to do legislation-wise over the last year.”

The message Reiss and his organization try to put out has not changed because of their dislike for the president, however.

“I think we are less about just plain old resisting Donald Trump, but more about what can you do, what specific policies can the country do to make things better for people,” Reiss said. “Generally I think just going anti-Trump and just that being our whole message as a larger party, I think that would be a mistake.”

One group that has begun to focus on different issues since Trump took office is the EIU Progressives, according to the organization’s president Juan Nevarez.

The mission of the progressives is to get people out to vote and focus on social justice issues, but Nevarez believes that developments in the Republican party have led to an incorrect view on millennials, which his group aims to put to rest.

“There is an image that we are kind of entitled and that we’re asking for things that we don’t deserve,” Nevarez said. “Which I think is completely ridiculous, because we’re asking for social justice.”

JJ Bullock can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].