Her Story
About Crisol
I've been working in higher education for the last 5 years, focusing on college access and pre-collegiate guidance for first-generation students in Colorado. In my current role, I handle recruitment and bilingual family communications, working with parents and students to provide information with language accessibility in mind. I do a lot of Spanish-English bilingual transitions and work extensively with new arrival students and their families. As a native speaker and a first-generation student myself, I see myself in them, so it's really easy to work with them and talk to them and help them bridge that gap between higher education and their families. I graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2024 with a bachelor's in psychology and Spanish and a minor in business. I'm currently pursuing my Master's in Public Policy at the University of Denver, focused on immigration and education policy. A defining moment in my career was an internship I did in DC with the Congressional Hispanic Conference Institute. That internship helped me open my eyes to more of the policy lens, but also in the youth programming sense, and it helped me really guide what I want to do and how I want to show up in my own community back here in Colorado. It showed me that you could do all of these things in different lenses to get to the same goal and outcome, as long as it's first-gen focused, youth programming focused, and Latino focused. I've been able to come back from that internship and really work and network in a youth programming, Latino-focused way that reflects what my background is.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Crisol
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my mom. Everything that I've done is for my mom. My mom is an immigrant who came to this country to give me the opportunity that I have now. She worked really hard and sacrificed a lot for her to be here so that I can succeed, and I think all of my success is a reflection of her hard work and her sacrifice, and I do it all for her.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I received was to always take every opportunity. There was a time where I was hesitant to take opportunities. Coming from a Latino household, as a woman in education, there's a lot of sexist gender norms that can play a part of that, and I would be afraid to take opportunities that were handed to me because I was worried about how my family would scrutinize me for it. The advice that I received was to take the opportunities, and if I wanted it, to just take it, and to not conform to any traditional Latino gender norms. I've been able to do that, and my family has been able to grow with me in that lens and become more accepting and more understanding.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would give the same advice that I've been told: take every opportunity and do not conform to gender norms. I would also say that it's important that as you navigate, whether it's this industry or the next, whatever industry, just because you might feel like you don't belong in a room doesn't mean that you don't belong. You're in that room for a reason. You've earned these opportunities. Continue to grow on them and continue to build on them, and find a community that will support you.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Right now we're struggling a lot because, in the pre-college aspect of this, a lot of our newcomer students or new arrival students are struggling to apply for higher education as a whole - financial aid, scholarships, etc. - due to their undocumented status and the fear around immigration raids and whatnot. Additionally, I think another issue is a lot of students are deciding to not continue with higher education because they are having to support their families with working and they cannot afford higher education because it's so expensive. Also, I think a lot of people are struggling with understanding and having access to the university of their choice, whether that's access financially or access due to immigration. There's just so much fear going around around different topics that really are affecting the way that we care for students.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Community, resilience, and honesty are my top values. I'm a big believer that it takes a village, but you also have to be a villager, so community is important to me - we show up for each other, it's our responsibility to take care of one another. I think resilience is another one, because with so many things going on around the world all the time, people are pushing through every day just trying to survive. The economy's not great, the job market's not great, but people are not giving up - they're looking for opportunities, they're pushing their education, or doing whatever. So I think that's a value of resilience in the community. And then, honestly, at the end of the day, I think honesty just gets you really far in everything, and it's important to be honest and be humble and have integrity.
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