Angelina Te is a welcoming, kind, and outgoing senior here at Mt. SAC Early College Academy. She first joined this school in her junior year, drawn to the learning opportunities and a desire for a close-knit community.
During her freshman year, she attended Lakewood High School and later transferred to Renaissance High School of Art in her sophomore year. In her junior year, she was originally attending West Covina High School, but once she heard about the college credit offered at MECA, she decided to transfer once again.
She described her freshman self as a perfectionist and close-minded. She wanted to go to certain boarding schools, such as Phillips Andover Academy and Phillips Exeter Academy. She tried to make herself the perfect student, competitively playing the euphonium and tennis. Te was on the accelerated pathway at her former high school; a pathway allowed a certain number of students to take college and advanced courses.
“My dreams were cut short soon when, like, my first, like, semester report got in, and like, I didn’t have, like, I like, a 3.785,” Te said.
She then began to question the purpose of doing classes and activities that didn’t bring her long-term joy. She went from a traditional pathway to a non-traditional pathway by attending an art school, where she was able to learn about different art styles, techniques, and digital graphic designs. There, she was allowed to pursue a modeling career through the school’s fashion department.
“I did like several headshots of myself, and I used to have a backstage account,” Te said. “I did, like a modeling show at some point, but it was, like, it was a recruitment show for my school.”
Modeling provided a way for self-expression and exploration of something new. She was in the midst of finding things that brought her joy and confidence. She went from being a pre-med major her freshman year to having a modeling career her sophomore year. After this experience, she joined internships that would allow her to be exposed to different professions. She took on teaching internships, which she enjoyed, and learned more about other internships and institutions.
“[I learned about] the Child MIND Institute, and it was with mental health, and I loved some aspects of it, like more of the sociology aspect, which led me to my other internship that I did after my junior year, Diddy Hirsch. But after that, like, I was just like, You know what? I’m a psychology person,” Te said.
Te has written a collection of research papers on mental health and the psychological effects on child development, such as “The Correlation between children’s Cognitive Regression with the Increase of Tablet Usage.” For her Youth Mind Institution internship, she wrote about ”How Social Media Affects Self-Diagnosing Culture.” She has continued her writing journey by publishing her articles on her website, Golden Student Bears.
“People hold themselves back from starting organizations,” Te said. “I’ve talked to people before, and you were like, Oh, it wouldn’t look too great on my college because, like, what if I fail? Or, like, some people think, like, they’re not capable enough, had no experience in like, anything. Like, all that matters is that you’re doing something and that you’re putting effort towards it.”
Te has also gone on to write her own book, Raw Poems From A Teenage Girl, which talks about her personal experiences, opinions, and beliefs.
“I became more confident in myself and just started doing a bunch of random things. And I think because I started doing I started to, like, take more risks, because I knew, like, I would be okay after failing, I started to get more opportunities, like, I started to reach out more,” said Te.
She has been a Didi Hirsh Mental Health Service, Teen Line Ambassador Intern, a student researcher at Long Beach City College Child development center, and has won multiple awards, such as the Alexander Hamilton Scholarship, Principle Honor Roll, Honorary Youth ambassador and has gained other awards from the other two colleges she is enrolled in, which also includes Mt. San Antonio college.
After high school, she plans to attend a four-year college and achieve her master’s degree, and she hopes to also travel abroad.
Through this, she believes the bigger risks you take, the bigger reward you will receive because you just don’t know what’s possible. She says you shouldn’t let the fear of failing get in the way of your personal success.
