We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Angelina Te a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Angelina , thanks for joining us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

Throughout my adolescence, I grew up in the streets of North Long Beach, California. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood and attending Title 1 Schools, I’ve always known that people like me- a child of immigrants, person of color, and low-income- were set up to never rise above the working-class sector. Knowing the systemic limitations, I researched various opportunities to rise above my circumstances. and with the resources I found, I used them elevate myself, as well as my peers in my community. I initially started elevating others through my middle school’s instagram account (I ran the account back in the 7th grade), during the pandemic, helping various students and parents in questions regarding mental health, academic courses, career preparation, etc.
Once during my experience, I’ve helped various types of students, from straight A students from well supported backgrounds to students who were considered “trouble.” I remember helping a student who was known as the “troubled student,” break out of her shell of everyone’s negative perceptions towards her, and helped her reconcile with her peers as well as relocate her mindset to want to achieve good long-term goals such as: pursuing higher education, earning scholarships, etc. It felt rewarding to help someone realize that they’re beyond what society thought of them, because I Grew up being perceived as “poorly educated” and “a threat;” so I understand how it feels to be misconceived by society.
After my days of being my middle school’s instagram holder, ended, I knew no matter what happened in the future, that I would always find a way to be the light to illuminate someone’s path, to help others to break beyond barriers and realize their true potential. One day, while helping out one of my underclassmen friend apply to internships, I came across an opportunities page filled to the brim with college and career opportunities and advice, and I was inspired by how the account posted opportunities, so I was like wait- this is super similar to what I did before, this is exactly what I want to do. So then I made Golden Student Bears, which provides a plethora of advice on student life as well as opportunities for high school students through social media posts and our magazine, which helps students find opportunities as well as amplifying other students voices to be heard.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I love to express myself to the world! Beyond my pursuits with Golden Student Bears, I love to write! When I first learned how to write at the age of three, I started to write in cursive, as I had a lot of ideas to let out. To this day, I still have myriads of ideas, whether it’s an idea to start an organization or to write stories or poems, I’m always thinking about ideas that can brighten the world.
Last year, I published my debut poem collection, “Raw Poems From A Teenage Girl,” which contains various poems about my the joys, sorrows, grief, and various emotions I’ve felt through the experiences of my adolescents. Since my publication, I’ve encouraged and helped numerous teenagers like me pursue their dream writing and publishing their poem collections or any piece of literature, and I do this, because I want to uplift other who may have never believed they could also publish their ideas.
Throughout my journey of writing poems and publishing my collection, I’ve learned that if you an idea or dream, you should pursue it no matter what, even if you believe that you’re not good enough. Prior to publication, I’ve never really believed in myself nor my ideas, as I believed that my many ideas don’t resemble anything of depth or greatness, which is completely false! No one is truly talented nor horrible at anything, the world moves as we change, so we can transpire to anything we desire at any moment! So to anyone reading this, my message is: “You can achieve anything you want in the world, so never cut yourself short in pursuing your dreams!”

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Throughout my adolescents, I’ve always been a highly ambitious person who wanted to pursue as many endeavors as I can! As soon as I stepped foot into high school, I pursued numerous leadership roles and career opportunities such as being a club-founder, school site council, and pursued internships and programs. Commonly, many people told me that my pursuits were extraordinary especially due to my young age at the time, so I started to believe that I didn’t have to work as hard to excel at what I was doing since me doing the activity at an earlier/younger age was already an accomplishment.
So, I began to put less work into my projects, as I believed that my starting was good enough; that completely backfired! My freshman I ran two clubs: an Asian American Club and an Anti-Bullying Club, and I put minimal work into both, as my mentality led me to do so. Both clubs ended up being a total disaster! The only people that joined were my (former) friends, who honestly didn’t care about the club’s message, and I ended up missing a lot of deadlines due to my complete carelessness on efficiently completing forms and requirements necessary for the club. I do have to give freshman self credit though, as I did try and I did end up having some success (ran a fundraiser that fundraised ~300 dollars), however, I knew that if I had put more care and effort into my activities instead of believing my efforts were already good enough due to my young age, I would have made more of an impact with my clubs.
After my freshman year, I learned that doing something at an earlier age wasn’t an accomplishment, rather it’s the actions and beliefs you pursue and embrace and its impacts that matter the most.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

So, I met the co-founder of Golden Student Bears, Joicelin Troung while I was scrolling on LinkedIn: one night, I was doom scrolling through the connections page on LinkedIn until I found an account with a header stating something along the lines of, “high school junior looking for STEM or Business opportunities!” After seeing her header, I was like, “wait, I know a few opportunities in both of those fields” since I had a couple of friends that were STEM fanatics and I knew a thing or two about business opportunities for high school students. So, I eagerly shoot her an email listing various opportunities I knew, as well as people who had an expertise in the STEM or business field. Later on, we began talking about the significant barriers and challenges that students like us- low-income students from immigrant households- have in finding academic programs, college-preparation opportunities, etc., and we felt strongly about wanting to make a change about this, so she joined me on my journey of building up Golden Student Bears!
Ever since she’s joined, the organization has created more posts than ever; we published our first magazine with a team of amazing graphic designers and journalists; and much more that still in the works! Honestly, I’m eternally grateful and fortunate to have met Joicelin, as not only has she contributed immensely to the organization and mission, she’s also such an amazing person who’s always dedicated to empowering others.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldenstudentbears/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angelina-te-b59690289/

Image Credits

(All images were taken or created by Angelina Te)