Hillygus noted that with an incumbent president, the competition for jobs is much more fierce.

“[Incumbent presidents] already have so many employees on board with experience. It is more likely to be the case that had people been volunteering for a challenger, they would be able to parlay their experience into a job,” she said.

But for Michael B. Firestone ’05-’06, working for the challenger Kerry, his candidate’s loss means more time for thesis research.

Firestone—who took the semester off to work for the Kerry campaign in Florida—will return to Harvard for the spring semester, busying himself with the research that took a backseat to campaigning.

“I really slacked on that because I was working on the Democratic National Convention and then went to Florida,” Firestone said.

Peter P.M. Buttigieg ’04 acknowledged that “everyone quietly hopes that there will be something waiting for them in the White House.”

“Now it is going to be another four years until us Democrats get a chance to do that,” said Buttigieg, who has worked for Kerry in Arizona and New Mexico since early July.

Even though he was on the losing side, Buttigieg spoke highly of the connections he made.

“The world is smaller than you think in politics. If it is on your resumé that you worked in Arizona, chances are someone will say ‘Hey do you remember this kid Pete? Was he any good?’” Buttigieg said.

And Firestone joked that he, too, has taken away much from his early mornings on the campaign trail.

“Hopefully, now, I should be able to get up on the weekends before 2 p.m.,” Firestone said.

Whether on the winning or losing team, many students agreed that with such intense work on the campaign trail, it was hard to imagine a post-election world.

“It felt like jinxing it to be thinking past Nov. 2 because it was so up in the air,” Sykes said. “I remember my friends making plans for Nov. 5, but I couldn’t think past Nov. 2.”

—Staff writer Faryl W. Ury can be reached at ury@fas.harvard.edu.