Spotlighted Student: Kenna Garrison '17

During her junior year of high school, Haverford College showed up on Kenna Garrison’s '17 radar after she participated in a soccer clinic run by the Haverford women’s soccer team. Furthermore, while a senior in her East Sandwich, MA high school, she learned of Haverford’s participation in the 4 + 1 Engineering program. She was enamored with Haverford’s campus, and Coach Jamie Schneck and members of the soccer team all welcomed her so warmly that she knew this is where she wanted to spend her next four years.

Although she had engineering in mind while in high school, as she entered college she planned on working toward a degree in mathematics. When she learned that the mathematics thesis entails a theoretical approach, she reassessed her academic plan. Kenna was more interested in approaching her thesis with an applied approach. She took Introduction to Economics with Professor David Owens and in the first lecture he erased all assumptions she had that economics is about finance and accounting. When she learned about the scope and breadth of economics she immediately decided to major in economics. She will also earn a Minor in Statistics with a Mathematical-Economics Concentration.

Statistical Methods in Economics with Professor Ball, Econometrics with Professor Preston and Professor Owen’s Junior Research Seminar: Psychological Biases and Economic Decisions stand out as high-light courses. Professor Giri Parameswaran’s class Advanced Microeconomics: Uncertainty was extremely challenging and at times overwhelming, but in the end it was well worth those moments of panic.

Kenna spent the fall semester of her junior year at DIS in Copenhagen, Denmark where she studied global economics, health economics and the economics of crime. During her time there she visited the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank, and she also traveled extensively throughout Europe.

Enriching her education through job experience, Kenna worked in her hometown as a finance intern at The Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank during the summer after her sophomore year. She monitored and cross-checked transactions, and produced financial analyses on quarterly reports.

Following her junior year she lived in Boston working for Compass LexEcon, an economic consulting firm. She was charged with analyzing and critiquing the opposing team’s position on an anti-trust litigation case that involved the energy market. She was able to put to good use her skills in the statistical software programs STATA and R that she learned in her economics classes.

Kenna’s thesis will examine how the implementation of statewide medical marijuana laws impact crime rates. While critics of these policies often predict increases in certain types of crime under more relaxed drug policies, most empirical research has indicated either no effect on crime or a decrease in crime rates related to medical marijuana laws. Kenna hopes to better understand this relationship, as it is highly important in determining drug policies with the least harm to society.

After she graduates Kenna is hoping to work as a research assistant in the Federal Reserve System, or with a college professor interested in microeconomic policy, public policy and/or labor policy.

Kenna sometimes plays with the men and women’s club soccer teams, and she co-heads the Relay for Life committee. She is also involved in the recently established Nut-House association, whose goal is to rally the community’s team-spirit and involvement at athletic competitions by organizing tail-gaiting parties.