Jocelyne Cardona

Jocelyne Cardona—2012 Fellow

Year: Class of 2014
Chuck Green Civic Engagement Fellowship

This fellowship is an opportunity to be directly involved in a community initiative of your choice. The fellow partners with a local organization and collaborates on a project to execute during the 10-week summer component of the fellowship. This summer I chose to work with Neighborhood House’s College Access program. My basic role/project was to make their program stronger with my own knowledge and through my observations of the program. I did this by planning events for participants and one specifically targeting the Latino community. In addition I focused on making sure that the program had updated resources that would help them support undocumented students who they served. Finally, I conducted one-on-one counseling sessions with many native Spanish speakers, seeing as the program had no one who spoke the language themselves.

I am very passionate about the intersection of immigration and educational issues. I have been very involved in DREAM Act initiatives on campus and advocating for undocumented students. In the future I would love to go into the field of education policy and see where that takes me. I mainly just want to make sure that I am giving back to the Latino community and making sure that education is accessible to all.