Making Connections
Like Tsao, Elizondo also interned with APHSA. During summer 2017, Elizondo performed policy analysis and informed the organization’s stakeholders of the rapidly changing situation during Congress’s attempted repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
“It was an exciting time to be in Washington,” Elizondo recalled. “We would finish writing one article about the Affordable Care Act legislation, and by the time we were done, there would already be a new development. It was empowering to be in that electrifying D.C. environment where everything was happening and to share that with a big group of stakeholders. It was a great professional experience.”
As a Brown Scholar, President’s Endowed Scholar and biomedical sciences major, Elizondo was introduced to health policy in 2016 when she interned with Vanderbilt Medical Center. During that internship, her time was split between shadowing doctors and researching Medicaid policy. “I fell in love with health policy research and the huge impact policy and law can have,” she explained. “I wanted to see what that kind of work looked like in D.C., so PPIP seemed like a perfect opportunity.”
The experience Elizondo gained through PPIP is beneficial in her current role at Deloitte as a government consultant. “PPIP was a great choice for me,” she said. “I currently work in the health and human services sector at Deloitte, and although the work is more technology-focused than what I did with APHSA, but it’s been very helpful context to have.”
Elizondo’s time with the program and at Texas A&M will continue to guide her as she attends Yale Law School this fall to explore opportunities in criminal justice and health policy. “I’m still shocked that I was accepted to Yale,” she said. “It’s excellent for government work and public interest work, and I’m super excited about it.”
The connections Elizondo made through PPIP, both with fellow Aggie students and with policy professionals, encouraged her to pursue her dream of attending law school. “PPIP was a great opportunity for me to see that law is a path I enjoyed and that so many people are also interested in these areas,” she explained. “I also met many great mentors at APHSA that encouraged me to pursue a law degree and to gain work experience before attending law school, which was valuable in my application process. I can’t say enough good things about my time with PPIP.”
Interested in helping the Public Policy Internship Program develop future professionals? You can support students through a scholarship to cover travel, housing, tuition and other expenses during their internship. For more information, contact ppip@tamu.edu or visit ppip.tamu.edu.