Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump faced off last night in perhaps one of the most highly anticipated first presidential debates in US History.

The 90 minute commercial-free debate began at 9 pm Eastern time and was hosted at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.  Lester Holt was chosen as moderator after Matt Lauer received criticism of his performance in previous debates.

In addition to the debate airing on all four major broadcast networks including ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX as well as cable news outlets like CNN and Fox News, the debate was made available for free, live streaming on many digital platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and others.

The three topics announced beforehand were “America’s Direction,” “Achieving Prosperity” and “Securing America;” however, these functioned only as big picture topics from which jumping point questions were based off of.  After the discussion of these first two topics, the debate began to pick up speed in order to maintain the expected time limit.

“I watched the debate because I wanted to be more informed on what is happening with the election and between the candidates currently,” senior Avery Roberts said. “It is always interesting to hear about the issues they debate over and how much they differ in their election platform.”

For others, viewing stemmed from a sense of civic duty.

“I can can vote in this election which is what made me want to watch,” senior Reeder Kuhn said. I wanted to hear them talk about terrorism and immigration policy.”

Although ISIS and terrorism were briefly touched on last night, the two topics will most likely be a focus of one of the additional upcoming debates.

Surveys by the Wall Street Journal show that the majority of Americans are having similar concerns for each of the candidates. With Trump it is his readiness and ability to take on the job, while for Clinton it appears to be her secrecy and trustworthiness.

“I don’t like Clinton because I feel like she is lying to me every time she talks,” Kuhn said.

Despite polls like the Political Forecast has put out that state Clinton has a 67% chance of winning the election, Trump continues to be a forerunner in this 2016 election.

The Vice Presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 4 while the next Presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 9 at Washington University here in St. Louis. Anderson Cooper will moderate.