Student Spotlight: Christy Serrano

MPP Candidate, 2012

March 22, 2012

After graduation from Northwestern University, Texas native Christy Serrano began working to help disabled youth find permanent, meaningful employment. She quickly realized that the system was flawed and decided a public policy background could help her fix it. At Harris, she has been involved with Leaders in Child Family Policy and the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy. As a career services committee chair for the student government she works as a liaison between the student body and the career development office.

Outside of school, she has worked on research initiatives for the Erikson Institute and human capital policy for Chicago Public Schools. Serrano also volunteers for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. She currently works at the Ounce of Prevention Fund, which aims to improve early childhood experiences and outcomes. Serrano has already agreed to work as a Policy Associate at Ounce of Prevention after graduation.

How did you end up focused on Public Policy?

Initially I had thought that I wanted to go into social work. Then when I started working in direct service for a few years with youth; it was very rewarding but I felt like the constraints that I was working under were really limiting the potential of what the program could do. I also was thinking about how my nonprofit was functioning, and I couldn't really piece together why I didn't think it was working. I didn't have the tools to do that or to even start thinking or talking about it that way. So, I started looking into public policy programs, because I felt that was the most practical route to take to start bettering programs.

Why did you choose Harris over other public policy schools?

I have a liberal arts background. What drew me to Harris was this focus on the analytical, quantitative side of things. I realized that being able to think about problems critically and in a quantitative sense was really important.

Have your goals changed since you began school?

I came in thinking about education policy and that has really broadened. Education is a really important piece of social policy, but I also have learned that there are so many other elements in a child's world. You can't separate them. You can't take a child and only talk about education because there's a family life, there are health concerns (there may be abuse at home), neighborhood concerns (there's gang violence in the street). There are a lot of things happening in that one person's life that happen way beyond the walls of a schoolroom and that also shapes human development.

What are your broader career goals?

To one day be informing policy on a meaningful level to legislators and to have a say or a hand in implementing that policy. It's a very vague answer to your question, but more or less to be able to influence not only policy design, but the implementation of that policy at a local level.

--Brian P. Nanos