☆ Angel ☆

high school & community college student • they/them • interdisciplinary studies lover • prospective engineering student

[dykay-studies]

Welcome to My Blog!

Hi! I’m Angel! I am a high school senior currently going through the college admissions process who is interested in everything related to engineering and the humanities.

I hope this blog can serve as a way to keep me disciplined in my education (especially going into my senior year) and as a way to share my experiences with others.

I do quite a lot outside of school. In my free time, I do a lot of tutoring, ranging from tutoring high school students in math and science to tutoring aspiring women in STEM in CAD and programming basics to tutoring elementary students with dyslexia. Also, I work on a FRC team in many different technical and nontechnical areas and serve as the lead mentor of an FTC team. Additionally, I love research and have worked in both independent and mentored research for several years now in fields ranging from environmental engineering to AI in healthcare.

I dedicate my life to the service of others and would love to inspire others to do the same and discuss my experiences with doing so!

My main blog is @nuclear-dykay! See all my vaguely manic musings about my favorite media there!

About Me!

★ Hobbies: drawing, mixed-media art, creative writing, electronics design, programming, journaling, reading, learning!

★ Favorite Disciplines: electrical engineering, computer science, marine biology, nuclear physics, art history, literature

★ Strange Interests: frutiger aero, nuclear reactor accidents, history of the gaming industry, the cambrian period, the phantom of the opera, fallout, fear and hunger, pathologic

Blog Tags!

#angel’s daily musings - daily description of productivity

#angel’s productive ramblings - discussion of school-related experiences

#angel’s college troubles - discussion of my college admissions process

[dykay-studies]

Yay! (maybe…)

As of yesterday, I am officially done applying to colleges. This process has been a huge toll on me, so it’s nice to be complete with one part of it. I have officially pivoted to the scholarship grind.

Over the past week, I applied to the University of Texas at San Antonio and Rice University. I also visited Rice for an event. This has ended up being a catalyst for myriad poor consequences as I have now ended up falling in love with Rice (╥﹏╥).

There is something about the culture of genuine curiosity and care at Rice that has absolutely entranced me. I don’t believe I can become the engineer I desire to be without a rigorous humanities education with focus on ethics and policy, and I believe Rice provides an environment for me to achieve this. The undergraduate research opportunities and flourishing queer community at Rice hit home how supported I believe I would feel at this institution.

I face a ~13% acceptance rate in ED1, which scares me due to the connection I have developed with this institution. I can pretend not to care, but when I get rejected, I know how much it will devastate me. On the bright side, I get my decision on December 15th, so I don’t have wait long to hear the news. I will have time to pivot when I inevitably get rejected.

As I enter this next stage of the college application process, I fear the future, but will still do everything I can to guarantee the opportunities I desire.

[dykay-studies]

Reading this 6 months later when I’ve been officially committed to Rice for the past 4 months is crazy…

[dykay-studies]

Yay! (maybe…)

As of yesterday, I am officially done applying to colleges. This process has been a huge toll on me, so it’s nice to be complete with one part of it. I have officially pivoted to the scholarship grind.

Over the past week, I applied to the University of Texas at San Antonio and Rice University. I also visited Rice for an event. This has ended up being a catalyst for myriad poor consequences as I have now ended up falling in love with Rice (╥﹏╥).

There is something about the culture of genuine curiosity and care at Rice that has absolutely entranced me. I don’t believe I can become the engineer I desire to be without a rigorous humanities education with focus on ethics and policy, and I believe Rice provides an environment for me to achieve this. The undergraduate research opportunities and flourishing queer community at Rice hit home how supported I believe I would feel at this institution.

I face a ~13% acceptance rate in ED1, which scares me due to the connection I have developed with this institution. I can pretend not to care, but when I get rejected, I know how much it will devastate me. On the bright side, I get my decision on December 15th, so I don’t have wait long to hear the news. I will have time to pivot when I inevitably get rejected.

As I enter this next stage of the college application process, I fear the future, but will still do everything I can to guarantee the opportunities I desire.

[dykay-studies]

Long Time No See!

I’m back!! Things have honestly been so crazy in my life that I’ve struggled to maintain this blog, but I’m finally feeling the motivation to continue working on it. The last month has been a whirlwind of both good and bad things, but I would like to focus on the good as I get y’all update.

It has been a long time goal to break 1500 on the SAT, and I finally did!!! To be quite honest, I did score exactly a 1500, but I don’t care as this test has been the bane of my existence. I’m very happy to never interact with the SAT again.

I competed at my first AcaDec scrimmage recently, and I scored relatively well for someone who doesn’t try very hard. In total, I scored 7th in Honors overall, while scoring 9th in Art, 7th in Econ, 4th in Lit, 6th in Math, 3rd in Music, 2nd in Science, and 16th in SoSci (we don’t talk about this one….). I compete at my next scrimmage in a month and I am actually motivated to do well since we will be competing at our rival school’s campus.

Finally, I have started applying to and being accepted to universities! I am currently accepted to the University of Houston and Texas State University. I have submitted my applications to the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University. I still need to submit my applications to the University of Texas at San Antonio and Rice University. I am very stressed out about college apps, but these acceptances are definitely motivating me to keep going.

I intend to interact with this blog a lot more soon. I have really found my footing as a senior and am looking to dedicate myself more to this blog!

[dykay-studies]

First Week Retrospective

First week of senior year! Even though it’s only been a week, I feel like so much has happened already. I feel like I’ve finally gotten into the rhythm of things. It definitely took some adjustment to get comfortable this year as my schedule prevents me entirely from seeing my very close friends.

We have never had classes together because they primarily take on-level classes, but we have always made time to hang out in the morning before school and during lunch. Since I go into school late now, don’t have lunch with them, and our schedules are not compatible for walking together between periods (since my school is huge..) we don’t see each other at all during the day.

At first, this definitely dampened my mood because they mean a lot to me, but I’ve started to get used to it by engaging more with my other group of friends who are actually in my classes.

I have also gotten into the rhythm of having to worry about academics again instead of just my extracurriculars. I still have to get my life together a little bit (I typically reset my phone screen appearance and notion before every school year, but I have yet to do so..).

This is my first year doing acadec and I’m having a lot of fun with it. We have our first big test (outside of daily quizzes) tomorrow and I’m a little anxious for it (and my calc test on Friday). I’ve been scoring decently well without putting a whole lot of effort in, so I am debating trying to put in more effort to try to actually make the team.

Overall, I’ve been having a lot of fun this year! Excited for what opportunities and experiences my senior year will present to me!

[dykay-studies]

Schedule!!

I am fortunate enough to have a super light schedule for both high school and community college (those years of summer classes paid off!). That being said, I intend to maintain and expand my volunteer responsibilities this year given this lighter schedule

Here is my schedule for high school:

★ AP English Literature

★ AP Calculus BC

★ AP Physics C

★ Academic Decathlon

…And here is my schedule for community college:

★ Federal Goverment

★ Texas Goverment

Here is some of the extracurricular work I intend to participate in:

★ Tutoring high school students for academic success

★ Tutoring girls in CAD and programming basics for robotics participation

★ Tutoring elementary students with dyslexia in reading fundamentals

★ FRC robotics! Hope to further my work in design, electronics management, programming, and strategy

★ Mentoring a FTC robotics team

★ Conducting independent and mentored research in EE and CS

★ Developing CS curriculum for middle school girls

★ Starting a Girls Who Code chapter in my community

★ Creating art and writing pieces for my Scholastic Art & Writing portfolios

★ Submitting some of my writing to literary magazines