Alexa Rodriguez

Bring it home

The last leg of a race, is always the hardest to run. It’s not because your body can’t handle it. That home stretch is your body against your mind, it’s all up to your mind’s stamina and desire to finish. Maybe it’s because I love running, or maybe it’s because...

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Fan your fire

For me, it’s Rocky Balboa’s blaring theme song that rouses me from states of melancholy. It’s Steve Prefontaine’s audacious spirit. These are my role models, people’s whose quotes I have taped in front of my desk. I need all the motivation I can get to make my way...

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Ode to College

I don’t think I fully understood how college would change me. Prior to coming to Wellesley, I really had no clue about who I was. As cliché as that sounds, it’s true. I didn’t know if I was a follower or a leader, a shy person or an outgoing one. In high school, I...

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Chin up, Buttercups!

New Year’s Day has come and gone, and I am getting ready to enter my last semester of college. I’m graduating in May. There, I said it. Therefore, it must be true. Even though it totally doesn’t feel like it’s true. This chapter of my life is coming to a close and I’m...

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Fight the good fight

The idea of your first round of college finals can be daunting, I know. You’ve only just gotten your foot in the door and you’re already expected to take these exams. You may be exhausted and overwhelmed from the newness of college, and the sheer volume of everything...

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Ready to peace out

Once I found out that I had no classes on Tuesday the week of Turkey Break, I was like “Peace out Wellesley,”. About a week from now I will be back in sunny California and far from cold, autumnal Massachusetts. Believe me, I am so ready for this break. November has...

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It's about to get personal….

Personal statements can be equal parts refreshing and terrifying because of its open-endedness. How can you POSSIBLY put your whole life and personality into two pages? That is something I remember struggling with when I was applying to colleges in high school, and...

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BYOFB-Build your own fan club

College is a trying, and sometimes trifling time. It is a period of remarkable personal growth. It’s kind of like a second puberty now that I think about it—minus the awkward disproportionate physical growth. College is a period, pun intended, when you should get...

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Enough

Something that I struggled the most with as a first year was the feeling that I was not enough. Not smart enough, not articulate enough, not assertive enough to be able to stand toe to toe with my peers. I’m from straight hood and these girls were from a world of...

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My Cinderella shoe internship

This summer I found the Cinderella shoe of an opportunity with the Los Angeles County Department of Health in South Central Los Angeles which is also, coincidentally, my home. I interned right in the heart of my hometown of Compton which was JUST the experience I...

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