Student Profile: Isabel Kennon, MPP Class of 2023

Isabel Kennon has known the importance of community service for as long as she can remember. From a young age, Kennon participated in Girl Scouts, where she worked on service projects each year, and came to understand the importance of helping others. However, as she grew up, it became clear that community service wasn’t always enough to meet the needs of increasingly vulnerable communities. “I realized that in order to really help people, I need to look at why they are in certain situations in the first place and what systems put them there. That’s what got me into policy,” Kennon said.

Kennon’s interest in public policy solidified as she was pursuing her bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Latin American Studies from Washington University in St. Louis. “I had taken Spanish in high school, and I was interested in learning about the rest of the world and being able to communicate with people in other countries,” she remembered. While studying abroad in Santiago, Chile and working on her senior thesis, she examined the state of public housing policies there, driven by an interest in neighborhood dynamics and stories.

Once she graduated, she knew that she needed professional experience, so she moved to Washington, DC, where she interned at a foreign affairs firm focused on Latin American policy. “I learned about the ins and outs of what it takes to implement policy,” she said. “Most of the team was Latino, with a personal stake or interest in their country. I realized I wanted to improve my own country through domestic housing policy.”

After her internship ended, Kennon began her job search. “I just kept seeing really exciting jobs that looked exactly like something I wanted to do, but a lot of them wanted either experience or a master’s." Many of them also required a level of quantitative skills that Kennon felt she didn’t have. “You need to understand the numbers to identify policy solutions, but I didn’t know how to do that,” she said. “I realized I was lacking some pretty crucial skills.”

Kennon knew grad school could help fill in that quantitative gap. She was familiar with the University of Chicago, and was drawn to Harris at the Master of Public Policy by its quantitative emphasis. She applied to some other programs as well, but Harris stood out. “Harris did a really great job with communication. With all the events, including two admitted student weeks, I felt like I knew the most about Harris,” Kennon said. “The information I received about the programs was helpful. It felt very realistic and honest. I felt comfortable picturing myself at Harris.”

Now an incoming student, Kennon hopes to leverage her degree to work in housing policy. “I think my time working at the federal level in DC made me realize that I’m more interested in doing state or local level policy work,” she said. As for being  on campus this fall, Kennon said she is most looking forward to meeting new people. “I’m excited to meet my classmates, to have conversations with them, and to learn from them.”