For the moment, Sharlyne Woodbury, who will graduate in the fall, is registered as an Independent. And she is decidedly noncommittal.

"You have to convince me to vote either way," says the political science major. As of earlier this month, she hadn't been persuaded - either by Democrats or Republicans. Yet by summer's end, whether or not Ms. Woodbury has developed a strong party loyalty, she'll certainly have learned enough to be a well-informed voter.

Woodbury is one of 40 students enrolled in "Presidential Campaigns and Conventions," a class at Northeastern University here in Boston. The professor, former Massachusetts governor Michael Dukakis, knows a thing or two about campaigns and conventions, having run for president on the Democratic ticket in 1988. In addition to the usual lectures, reading, and papers, his students must devote at least 80 hours to the Democratic National Convention's (DNC) host committee in Boston.

As the DNC unfolds here, in this city synonymous with academe, more than 400 students are volunteering through the convention's host committee as part of formal academic programs. Roughly 44 percent of the nearly 14,000 convention volunteers are between the ages of 18 and 25 - the youngest is 11. And countless more students will filter through the streets this week, sidling as close as they can to the action.

But beyond the Democratic convention, educators have discovered that the entire presidential election cycle - from caucuses to inauguration - offers a unique opportunity for students of all ages and stripes to experience democracy firsthand.

Some students scrutinizing this year's election are budding politicians, activists, and reporters. Others are simply intrigued by politics, and curious about the political process.

In addition to Professor Dukakis's students, and those converging on Boston from more distant colleges and high schools, 20 local students from urban high schools are distributing "The Boston Commoner" to convention delegates, a newspaper they've put together with help from professional journalists. One student wrote a story about the rare Bostonians who are happy to have the convention in town.

Young journalists from Scholastic's Kids Press Corps have been following even the tiniest election tremor sinceSeptember 2003. The University of California, Berkeley, sent seven students to New Hampshire's primary. And 15 College Republicans from Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., had planned to cross the Hudson River for next month's Republican convention well before learning they will earn credit for their efforts.

"People talk about how youngsters in the United States are not interested in politics: young people don't go out to vote, they don't care," says Ralph Begleiter, a former CNN journalist, who now teaches political science and journalism at the University of Delaware in Newark.

But Professor Begleiter had to turn students away from "Road to the Presidency - The Political Conventions," a course he and a colleague are teaching around the Democratic convention. They first taught the course for the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. "Seeing 86 students lining up to go to the convention," when there was space for just 24, he says, "that's a little bit of a revelation."

The Washington Center, which offers college students academic internships, has sponsored seminars tailored to both parties' conventions for the past 20 years. In 1984, when the program began, 200 students enrolled. This year, more than 400 will attend the conventions.

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