Anna Chang, the valedictorian of the senior class, has reached many outstanding academic achievements while in her three years at Pinole Valley High. Among these accomplishments, she recently qualified for the state Science Fair and was a key member of the PVHS team that won MESA day, a regional science competition.

Anna, Devin, and Cecilia formed a power team on MESA day and together they won a competition called Escape Room. She said of them, “Devin and Cecilia are both really great at math, and we ended up getting first, so that was fun.” They were put in a room with various other teams, and every team was given problem sets. The problem sets were focused mainly on math, but some logic and riddles were mixed in.

Winning wasn’t the only thing that she cared about, though. “For me, more than just winning, I had a really good time,” she said. This is Anna’s last year at Pinole Valley, and the competition was certainly something to remember. “Being able to do something as fun as this was a really good experience. We’re all seniors now, so it was kind of like our final chance to do something really exciting.”

Anna was also able to qualify for the California State Science Fair, something she was very surprised about. She said, “I was mostly shocked because I knew there were lots of other great projects out there.” Her project, titled ‘Study Jams’, highlighted the effects of music, whether turned off, with lyrics, or just instrumental, on people’s ability to comprehend and complete school work.

But what is her secret to all of this success? Anna said, after some thought, that it is having so many people around her that inspire her to do well. Two particular inspirations in her life are her older sisters. “They’re both older than me, and they’re done with college, so seeing their success encourages me to get there as well,” she said.

Some advice from her: take classes at Contra Costa College! When asked about what helped her become valedictorian, she said, “One of the biggest reasons I got here is I took a couple of classes at CCC, and some of those classes gave me a GPA boost, the same way that honors classes or AP classes do here at school.” Taking these classes even helped her graduate a year early. She plans to major in data sciences or computational sciences in college.