Rosa Campos biography

Hola, quiero presentarme ante ustedes:
My name is Rosa Campos; I am 23 years old and currently attend Northern Illinois University. First of all, I want to thank all those who made this internship possible, I am sure it will be a great experience for all of us.

This is a little bit about my background: I was born and raised in San Luis Potosí, México. I lived there for 15 years, graduated from grammar school and High School. Looking for a better future, my parents decided to come to the United States in 1999. Currently, my whole family lives in Chicago specifically in the Mexican neighborhood, La Villita. I come from a big family; I am the 3rd child of 8. Having 5 siblings younger than me has inspired me to work hard in order to become a good role model for them.

In 1999, I enrolled as a sophomore in Nuestra America Charter High School. I came from Mexico knowing no English, thus making this transition extremely difficult for me. Fortunately, most of my teachers were bilingual and were very helpful to me and those students in similar situations. Nuestra America (originally Acorn High School) was open only a couple of years, thus having only two graduating classes; I was in the second one and last one. After two years I was able to graduate with honors and got accepted to a public university.

In 2002, I got accepted to Northern Illinois University (NIU) through the CHANCE program, this is a program that gives a second chance to students who do not meet the traditional admissions criteria. Even though I was an excellent student during high school, I obtained a very low score on my ACT. Because I took this test only a year after arriving to this country, my English skills weren’t strong enough and as a consequence I didn’t understand more than half of the test. Thankfully, the bilingual counselor of the CHANCE program, Susana Das Neves, was there to help me and guide me through all the process of leaving my home and coming to DeKalb as an NIU student. Being the fist person in my family to attend a university wasn’t easy; at the beginning my parents didn’t support the idea of me leaving home. I had no knowledge about financial aid or the classes that I needed to take but thankfully Susana guided me through the process.

My freshman year at NIU was the toughest year of my college experience. My English was getting better but I still struggled understanding the teachers and writing papers. Most of the time I had to do all the research in Spanish, teach myself what I didn’t understood in English, write the papers in Spanish first and then translate them before going to the writing center or asking friends for corrections. Also my personal life was affected by the death of one of my cousins who was a victim of gang violence in the streets of Chicago. On top of this, I also broke my left foot, had two reconstruction surgeries and I wasn’t able to walk normally for almost a year. Definitely my freshmen year made me a stronger person.

Currently, I am completing my sixth year at NIU as a double major in Elementary Education and Spanish Language and Literature. I am very proud to say that after all this work; I will be graduating in May 2008 with two bachelor degrees, a teacher certification and an endorsement in science and foreign language. I plan on working as a bilingual teacher in the Chicago area and working closely with the Latino community upon graduation. My teaching career is one of the reasons why I decided to apply to this internship. I love nature and would like to be more knowledgeable about the subject so I can pass that knowledge on to my students. One of my goals for this internship is to learn as much as possible about the Monarch butterfly and eventually create a Monarch butterfly unit to be incorporated in my teaching.

Regarding my leadership experience, I am proud to say that I have been very involved in my community. The summer of 2002, I participated in a campaign called Youth First. As a community organizer I conducted workshops on street violence, gangs and drugs to parents and youth. I also coordinated a protest of youth against street violence. The summer of 2004, I interned for the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute (USHLI), as a voter registration organizer registering over 600 people to vote for the 2004 presidential election. In addition, I worked closely with the Alderman of the 22nd ward, Ricardo Muñoz, providing team support as a Spanish-English translator.

This past summer was very exciting for me. I participated in a three week field trip in Nebraska and Wyoming. For three weeks, I studied a variety of geological features and concepts in Nebraska, followed by a four-day geoscience teaching methods experience in Wyoming. This summer I was also very fortunate to study abroad in Spain for five weeks. It was an amazing experience attending Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo, Spain. I had the chance to travel throughout the country and Europe visiting numerous locations including Paris.



As you can see, I really love to travel and hope to one day visit every state within the United States and all over Latinoamérica. My other hobbies include: cooking, reading Latin American literature, spending time with my family and fiancé and watching novelas. Again, I would like to thank everyone for making this possible. I am very excited about this opportunity and look forward to meeting everyone soon!