Angela

Angela Brenda Villa

Date of Birth: June 29, 2001

Year in School: Graduated!!

Location: Mexico City, Mexico

TOP      2020-2021      2019-2020

ABOUT

Angela was one of our scholarship recipients from 2013, but she left the program in 2017 due to some personal issues at home, which were affecting her studies. She has always been a great student, but was having trouble and falling behind in her classes. When she dropped out of school, she said she wanted to return to the U.S. (she is a United States citizen whose mother was deported back to Mexico), but that was never able to happen. Instead, we were delighted to learn that she returned to a different school, away from the problems she was having, and has been thriving. Her grades are superlative, and she repeated the year she lost in fine style. We decided to help her again with her last couple years of secondary school, because we believe she will succeed if given a chance. And she appears to be doing just that!

High school in Mexico is basically six years: three years of “secondary” and three years of “preparatory,” which is a little like junior college.

Angela’s most recent grades (as of the end of her first year of “prepa”) are impressive and this has been the case since she returned to school. We’re excited to have Angela back in the ONE family, and to see where she goes in the future.

You can read a little more about Angela’s story in this blog post from 2013.

2020-2021

October, 2021

Angela flew to the United States on September 21. She’s now living with her brother and we are in touch with her pretty regularly. We will keep you informed about her job situation, and what else she is doing. We wish her all the best and welcome to the United States as a grown young lady, Angela!

July, 2021

Angela has graduated from secondary school! And she did it with really high grades despite the pandemic, virtual classes, and all the other upheavals of life. We are so proud of her. And she still wants to be a pilot! Now, the problem is that pilot school in Mexico costs about $36,000 U.S., which is obviously far more than we can pay. So she has decided to come to the U.S. to work and save money. She is a citizen here, and has a brother in southern California that she can live with. She wants to be here for a couple years, and try and save some money. We have asked her to fill out an application for a post-secondary scholarship to help her with her plane tickets to get here. We can’t pay for pilot school, but we can give her a start on her life in the United States. We hope with all our hearts that she can get into and pay for pilot school. She’s a super smart, amazing young woman, and we think there need to be more female pilots, and probably especially in Mexico! We will keep you posted on her progress and her application for funding from us.

December, 2020

Angela did beautifully on her first semester’s grades; she’s really hit her stride. We asked her to tell us what she is planning for her life after secondary school, as this is her last semester. She told us that she now wants to be a pilot! We’re not sure where that came from, but we’ll see how long this lasts with her!

2019-2020

July, 2020

Angela finished out the school year with amazing grades, despite having to do all her classes remotely online. It’s been hard for her and her mother, since they don’t have internet at home and she has to go to an internet “cafe” to study, but she persevered and just shone. She will be entering her last year of “prepa” in August, and we are super excited for her. In her final letter to us for the year, we asked her to talk a little about what it was like to study online, what she’d like to do in the future. Here’s a translation of that letter. She’s really been thinking a lot about all of this, but the pandemic has obviously put a damper on a lot of people’s plans. We have no doubt that when she is able, she will move ahead beautifully.

TRANSLATION

Hello, ultimately, things have been very strange, like in a movie. It’s something new for everyone to have to give up one’s daily life and avoid doing things we normally would do.

Everything has changed, like my classes. Some remarkable things that I can mention about studying online would be the effort of the teachers, as well as the students. The teachers gave us extra individual attention to resolve our doubts, and tried to utilize platforms to make it easier for us and to teach the class. Given that the majority of my teachers are older, it is a lot of work for them to understand the technology. Our classes also became a little complicated for us, not because of the technology, since it is easier for us to use it, but because of not having the solutions or answers from the teachers about any questions that arose for us. In the end, we all made our best effort.

This has been a good time to think about the essence of life and to value things, but also to discover what we really want to be and how to achieve that. This time has changed our thoughts about how we perceive everything. To some it has given the opportunity to be able to pass this time with family and to enjoy health. As I have had time to investigate and discover what I most like.

I have realized the importance of two things: how impressive is the world in general, as well as the technological systems and sciences that give us the opportunity to create and discover. Both things sound interesting to me, because we ignore many things and we often remain ignorant in many things. Now I appreciate things a little differently.

I really hope that all of you are healthy and that this situation hasn’t affected you. We’ll be in touch again.

Upon finishing prepa, I would like to study architecture, although I am looking at different careers that interest me, but they don’t have anything to do with each other.

Universities offer help to outside students for guidance in making better decisions. My plan is to take advantage of this help from different universities and inform myself on my own.

In terms of which university I would like to attend, I have three options: UNAM, POLITECNICO or UAEM, which is the university associated with my school.

I would love to take classes for the admission exam to the university, and a math class. However, I don’t know how these courses are going to be handled now because I would have to start taking them when I started classes, but due to the quarantine, I could not take the course for the whole year.

Angela Villa

Here are some photos from her days at school when she could attend in person, before the pandemic shut down the schools.

February, 2020

Angela received a certificate of recognition from the school system for placing second in her entire class, with a grade point average of 9.9 (99%). Congratulations, Angela! She is simply killing it in school and we are so proud. The photo her mother sent of the certificate is not very good, but we felt we should post it anyway.

January, 2020

Angela’s midterms grades were stellar again, even though it is clear from her letter to us that there have been some shake-ups at school, and that can’t have been easy. Overcrowding is a very common problem in many of these schools, which is why students only go half a day and then switch out with other students for the second half of the day. Angela describes overcrowding even within her half of the day, and it sounds like some of her favorite teachers are leaving the school. Despite this, she managed to get fantastic grades, and participate in some pretty amazing extracurricular activities.

Here are some photos from the Dia de Muertos activity she did with her class. We love the art!

Here is the translation of her midterm letter to us. She sounds frustrated, and we are so glad she is continuing to try and move ahead. It’s easy to just give up when you feel you know more than your teachers!

TRANSLATION

In my school the semester is divided into two parts, each consisting of two months. Before, my grade was divided into seven groups but that was reduced to four and they put a lot of students in my group so there was overcrowding. I knew many of the teachers who taught classes to me. I had to change groups since because of the overcrowding I couldn’t find a seat. Halfway through the first part of the semester I had to change to a new schedule with different teachers.

My favorite subject was history because I had a teacher who taught us with a lot of interest, but he went to another school and they gave us another and I personally did not like his class, because we the students knew more than her. Also, English was one of my favorites, although a very different way of teaching from my previous teacher. She had incredible patience with her way of teaching. I also like chemistry but personally I would have liked to do a lot more practicals and experiments. In language we also finished with a substitute, in reality I think we could have learned a lot more.

I would like to study architecture. I would like to put my personal style in art and technical design to build buildings or public spaces.

August, 2019

Angela sent us some recent pictures of her with her friends from school, and her new hair cut, of which she is very proud!