Andra Campos

I attribute my success to having a curiosity mindset, tenacity, persistence, and resiliency. The quote 'reach for the moon and you'll land among the stars' meant the world to me and drove me to continue trying my project and seeing what would work and what wouldn't. It helped me avoid being discouraged because my logic is that as long as you try, any failures you encounter or things that might not go as planned are all opportunities to learn something, and because of that, you end up one step closer to your goal. That quote was the reason I felt empowered enough to start my website, and I even put it in my graduating speech my senior year and as my yearbook quote. A lot of my work was done independently through trial and error, just figuring out what worked and what didn't, including doing social media promotional posts for the website.

The best career advice I've ever received is 'reach for the moon and you'll land among the stars.' That quote meant the world to me at that age and very much drove me to continue trying my project and seeing what would work and what wouldn't. It helped me avoid being discouraged because I knew that as long as I tried, I would end up somewhere eventually. My logic is that as long as you try, any failures you encounter or things that might not go as planned are all opportunities to learn something, and because of that, you end up one step closer to your goal. That was something I put in my graduating speech my senior year and as my yearbook quote because it meant so much to me, and that quote was the reason I felt empowered enough to start my website.

The advice I would give is to remember that quote: reach for the moon and you'll land among the stars. That meant the world to me at that age and drove me to continue trying my project and seeing what would work and what wouldn't. It helped me avoid being discouraged because I knew that as long as I tried, I would end up somewhere eventually. My logic is that as long as you try, any failures you encounter or things that might not go as planned are all opportunities to learn something, and because of that, you end up one step closer to your goal. That quote was the reason I felt empowered enough to start my website. I also think there are definitely opportunities for women in tech. At Stanford, a lot of the women I see are incredibly driven and they don't pay attention to the fact that women might be a bit underrepresented in the field of tech - they're just going for it, and I think that's all you can do.

The first value that is most important to me is communication. That's been something that's been huge, especially through counseling, just being able to talk to students and really understand what it is they're passionate about, and figuring out how we can help them start a project that works on something that they care about while also making sure that it's making a genuine difference in the community that they care about. The second value, which is probably even more emphasized throughout our organization than communication, would be purpose. We make sure that all of the projects that students start through our organization and counseling are all purpose-driven, and that's something we spend a lot of our time focusing our sessions on. Our motif is that once you hone in on purpose, then every other aspect just comes together, but it's really about finding what drives you that then allows you to figure out all the rest of the details.