Bronx Student Interns For Sen. Serrano

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Published on January 27, 2010, 5:14 pm
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Bronx native Angel L. Santana, Jr., a senior history/political science major at Mount Saint Mary College, is interning with New York State Senator Jose M. Serrano, 28th Senate District, during the spring semester.

After a week of orientation, Santana is already very busy, helping Serrano prepare for legislation that he will vote on and attending meetings with or for the senator. And busy is something Santana is used to.

Santana, a student in the Higher Education Opportunity Program, has been very active in his four years at the Mount. He has been a resident assistant, an admissions counselor, vice president of the Latin Student Union, and a counselor in the HEOP summer program. Last March, he took an alternative spring break trip to Houston, TX, to help build a house and refurbish another as a participant in Habitat for Humanity’s “Collegiate Challenge.”

Santana said he came from a small high school, Health Opportunities High School, and was reserved when he arrived at the Mount in 2006. He said the HEOP pre-freshman summer program helped prepare him for his first year in college.

“I’m grateful to be at the Mount,” Santana said, “and for the people put in front of me – the HEOP staff and the residence life staff. They have helped me gain confidence.”

HEOP provides educational opportunity and support to students with strong academic and personal potential who would otherwise be excluded from higher education due to circumstances of academic and economic disadvantage.

The Mount’s Career Center helped Santana secure this prestigious internship.

“The internship in the state senate is giving me a chance to apply what I’ve learned in the classroom to real life,” Santana said.

Santana hopes to go to law school and plans to take the Law School Admission Test in February.

He lives within walking distance of Yankee Stadium. Santana’s father, Angel, was born in Puerto Rico and his mother, Rosa, was born in the Bronx. He has two brothers, Daniel and Miguel, and a sister, Beatrice.

Serrano is the son of U.S. Representative Jose E. Serrano, 16th Congressional District in the Bronx.

The Mount’s 2,700 students pursue career preparation through undergraduate studies in many fields including business, education, the health professions and the humanities; and through graduate programs in business, education and nursing.

Visit the Mount’s new website at www.msmc.edu.

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Jonas Bronck is the pseudonym under which we publish and manage the content and operations of The Bronx Daily.™ | Bronx.com - the largest daily news publication in the borough of "the" Bronx with over 1.5 million annual readers. Publishing under the alias Jonas Bronck is our humble way of paying tribute to the person, whose name lives on in the name of our beloved borough.