My name is Kathryn (Katie) Serrano and I’m a Junior. I am originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan but have lived in Allen, Texas for several years before coming to the UofA. I was a magazine writer at Allen High School (the one famous for the $60 million football stadium that had a huge crack in it) for four years, and came to college knowing I wanted to be a journalist. I have written for the Arkansas Traveler in the features section and am a founding member of Spoon University at Arkansas, which is a food blog for college students/towns. Besides what is previously listed, I love writing about politics (I am double majoring in Political Science) and anything music/theater related. Outside of journalism I love music, soccer, the outdoors and traveling. I’ve been playing an array of instruments all throughout my life and have been in some sort of choir since I was in the 3rd grade. Although I don’t play competitively anymore, I have dribbled a soccer ball since I could walk, and grew up watching games on TV thanks to my Argentinian father. If I’m not busy doing any of that, I’ll probably be outside exploring and hiking the Ozarks. I was also given the opportunity to study abroad in Italy this past summer and can’t wait to go back to Europe to experience more culture that I can incorporate into my writing. I personally believe the best story I’ve ever written is an enterprise story I wrote last semester about the lack of sex education in Arkansas and how it contributes to our high teen pregnancy rates. I have taken Statistics here at the UofA, and a Scope and Methods of Political Science course last semester that focused on analyzing quantitative data that had to do with some sort of public policy. As my final project in that course I had to write an 18 page research paper about how individuals with disabilities affect voter turnout. I had to create my own formulas and incorporate previous and current data on the subject into my writing, so I think I have a decent handle on data-esque writing (even if I’m not the best at it.)

Below is a picture from my time in Rome when my class got to go the the AS Roma fútbol club training center, where we got to go in the broadcast room/PR room and meet the media team/journalists for the club.

Data Journalism Handbook:

I thought it was interesting that they have posted this book as a work in progress that anyone can contribute to or fix. I enjoyed the graphic, I believe it gave a good oversight of what I will be learning and helped prepare me for what’s to come in this section of the class in a more interesting way than just words on a page.