Angie Ocampo, PhD Student in Sociology and Fontaine Fellow, Discusses Her Research Interests

My name's Angie Ocampo and I am a first year PhD student in sociology. I was born in Bogotá, Columbia and my family moved to White Plains, New York when I was seven years old. So I grew up…White Plains is a suburb outside of New York City. And after going to White Plains schools for most of my educational career, I went to Brown University for undergrad. I studied Sociology and Ethnic Studies there. Broadly speaking, I'm interested in Latino American incorporation in the US. So I'm also interested in looking at a racial and ethnic relations between Latinos and other groups. I'd say my research interest is partly developed from my own upbringing and what I experienced growing up and also just the classes that I took in undergrad were really influential in making me interested in these types of topics. I felt like there was definitely more work that could be done in these areas that wasn't being sufficiently explored.

So, I'm looking at undocumented students at elite institutions like Penn and seeing how their experiences interact with an environment where there aren't that many of them. And seeing both kind of how they interact with the institution and the sorts of institutional supports that are available for them and also sort of, how they form peer networks and how they are able to leverage sources of support.

I thought that Penn really had everything that I was looking for. Not only did they have the specific faculty members and not only did their research interests align with mine very closely, but I also thought that the department was very well rounded. I've noticed that in a lot of other departments, it was in terms of qualitative versus quantitative research, there was always one that kind of won out the other in the department. Whereas I felt that here was very well balanced and I felt that I could get training in both types of methodologies in a very well rounded manner. Whereas, in other places I wouldn't have had that option.

I also really liked Philadelphia as a city as well. I thought that it was a great place to live, also very affordable, but like a smaller scale New York. So, lots of great food options, great neighborhoods, lots of cultural activities that I could partake in. I would also say just the grad students here are really friendly and I got a good vibe from coming here to visit as well. So, yeah. So Penn just really had it all in my opinion.