Experiencing National Hispanic Conferences

Attending conferences hosted
by HACU and Excelencia in Education

One awesome aspect about getting placed in an internship that best matches your career interests is the effortless opportunity to further engage in that field. My interests are in Latino students in higher education and placement at the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Division at the U.S. Department of Education was not only incredible but very critical to engaging in this particular advocacy field. My division is engaged with other nonprofits in this field and I was able to learn about and go to national conferences by these organizations. I learned incredibly from HACU, Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and Excelencia in Education conferences. It was here that I was able to speak with either researchers or institutional staffers and hear about their role and efforts to improve Latino higher education attainment. I also expanded my network incredibly with individuals across the country in various industries but all are concerned with improving Latino youth's upward mobility. 

Volunteering for
 National Hispanic Leadership Institute 

To future WAIP fellows, especially the ones who will be in the spring, I highly encourage you to volunteer at these large, national gatherings. I extended my stay in DC through the weekend so that I could volunteer at NHLI's, National Hispanic Leadership Institute, annual conference. While I couldn't get registered through work this was a great substitute to be engage and interact with nonprofit organizations that I admired. Sometimes it's hard to meet with members of an organization and volunteering for their events is a great initial way to start a relationship with the staff. Plus, I met a lot of amazing young Latina students who are also interested in policy and advocating on behalf of the Hispanic community. It's these types of connections and networks you can't replace. I strongly hope that the Spring 2013 fellows make a list of at least three organizations or advocacy groups they admire, find out if they are having large scale events, and ask to volunteer!

Amber Seira  |  @amber_seira