13alecampillo-blog

[13alecampillo-blog]

Introducing Myself

Who am I?

My name is Alejandra Campillo, I’m eighteen years old and currently spending a gap year abroad in Germany through the Congress-Bundestag Vocational Youth Exchange Program. I’ll also be a freshman at Stanford University the fall of 2020. In this blog you’ll be able to find a plethora of content revolving around political, economic, and social issues, as well as the occasional philosophical pondering and fashion commentary- in addition to of course insight on my time in Germany and experience with applying to Stanford (and a disgusting additional 16+ universities).

A lot of what influences me and the way I think are the different places I’ve lived in the past eighteen years. Born in California, I moved to El Paso, Texas when I was five years old and lived there until I was thirteen. After that, my father took on an expat assignment in coincidentally the Mexican city where both my parents were from- Hermosillo, Sonora. Living there for three years was revolutionary for my identity in many, many ways. After Mexico, my family and I spent two years in the Chicago, Illinois suburbs, Aurora/Naperville area. It was while attending my local high school that I applied to Stanford and my gap year program. I graduated May 2019 and departed for Germany late June. After two months in Bonn, I’ve moved to Wülfrath- where I’ll be spending the next ten months.

This blog is a documentation of my take on it.

Why do this?

In true gap year spirit, my biggest goal this year is to dedicate my time to advancing myself- regardless of how cliché as it sounds. My entire time in high school was either dedicated to adapting to a new school, new culture, aiming for the highest GPA, or going worldly lengths to be admitted into Stanford. I learned the math, the writing, the history, the science, and whatever else was asked of me. But in the process of that, I distanced myself further from- well, myself. School was no longer a tool for aiding my passion of expanding my every curiosity and interest but instead a weapon I used to battle against a society, a university, and a vicious voice inside my head in an effort to prove I was worthy.

This isn’t necessarily a year to take a break, it’s a year to exercise my brain in other ways. To me, this gap year signifies restoring balance. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret grinding my days away for school and am excited to grind at Stanford. I want to challenge myself academically even further than ever before.

But the fuel has to be different. My last breaths of senior year were powered by a feeling that I was way too deep in any of my commitments to quit, regardless of how much of a toll it was taking on me- it was powered by an internal shame and fear of seeming weak in comparison to my academic peers- I was powered by enough cups of coffee to make my stomach twist and ache as my burnt-out brain laboriously churned information for the satisfaction of an A.

I started this blog as a symbol for returning to doing things because I have a passion for doing them, not for a grade or deadline. Additionally, I hope that by sharing my own experiences I can help others who are on the college application journey- or really any journey challenged by obstacles.

What to expect?

I promise all of my writing to be raw; it’ll be real. Not necessarily perfect  (in terms of grammar and organization) but hopefully good enough to get the message across (lol). It’ll be opinionated, it’ll probably be bold – but ultimately, it’ll be true, at least my truth.

I hope that my writing is useful for anyone that needs it, maybe it can help some people feel slightly less alone.

I welcome you all to this gap year journey (that sounds really cliché oops).

Feel free to reach out to me if you have questions, comments, concerns, suggestions, or anything in-between!