Expertise in College & Career Counseling
and Personal Development
After decades teaching writing courses at both the high school and college levels, Erin became a certified school counselor. Her college and career planning experience includes teaching senior AVID students and working specifically as a College & Career Counselor.
Ms. Teague has helped me not only get into the school of my dreams but has been there for me each step of the way — from deciding which college would be the right fit, reviewing my essays, and answering any questions I had about the complex and scary world of applying for colleges.
In addition to college, Ms. Teague has been a constant advocate for me as a student and as a person. She’s someone who you want in your corner.
Erin and I have maintained a rich and meaningful friendship that has outlasted our professional attachment. She is fearlessly authentic, honest, brilliant, and reliable.
Erin has counseled me through many professional situations in which her feedback was invaluable. She’s helped me to navigate personal and professional changes in a way that I would not have been able to on my own. She’s helped me to see the bigger picture and helped me from being stymied by things outside of my control. Her wisdom and wit has added value to my life.
Throughout high school I worked on the yearbook that Erin advised. She was a constant support throughout all three years. She helped guide me through my journey in yearbook by helping me as I climbed from staff member, to editor, to editor-in-chief. She is so skilled at finding the best parts of me, encouraging me, and then helping me use those things to further my personal and professional growth.
In the midst of frustration, rejection, anxiety and doubt she knows exactly what to say. I think that this is because of her fabulous relationship building skills and her ability to read people and empathize. Because she has put in the work to get to know me and my skills and weaknesses, when I am in need of encouragement or guidance she knows exactly how to support me in that. I like to say that every time I leave a conversation with Erin, I have learned something new about myself — I leave a better person.
Whether it came to finishing our high school yearbook, getting through high school, or just trying to find out who we were as humans, Erin always pushed me and all of her students to be as creative and successful as possible. She never let me give up, and if I was ever doubting myself, she was the first person to call me out on it and help walk through how I could fix it.
I had a tough time in high school. I didn’t care much about school spirit or extracurriculars. However, in my yearbook class, I was able to fully be myself because of Erin. She encouraged me to be better and to voice my opinions. I became stronger, confident and open-minded which, in turn made me a who I am today.
I will be forever thankful to have been her student.
So many of the habits I have created and implemented in my day to day life were constructed under Erin’s watchful eye.
I was incredibly shy in high school and I had quite a bit of trouble with speaking up and allowing myself to be seen. Erin’s careful guidance and understanding nature helped me open myself up to so many things I was missing. I now submit my poetry to literary magazines and I feel no lingering fear that comes with that sort of thing. The person I was in high school, before yearbook, would have never done that. Never did Erin show a wavering faith in my ability to do anything I wanted to do.
As caring and as gentle as she was, Erin always found a way to make certain that there was still healthy pressure and she reminded me that there was never any room for complacency. When I didn’t take things as seriously as I should have, she didn’t get angry but showed me ways to move on and be better. She handed me the tools to help get myself out of sticky situations without doing it for me, and that skill has helped me endlessly as I’ve gotten older.
Throughout my time of having Ms. Teague as a presence in my education journey, she has greatly influenced my approach to a diverse range of tasks, including, but not limited to, the college application process, self-worth in the classroom, and the importance of being proactive.
As a College and Career Counselor this past school year, Ms. Teague has offered me is unimaginable guidance. She has made the whole process of college significantly less overwhelming for me. Her piece-by-piece thought process and well thought-out, personalized advice has greatly helped me to figure out many aspects of my future and what I hope to gain out of college.
Erin was one of the most instrumental people to my development as a human in high school, and even now, she continues to help me with advice, recommendation letters, and all the moral support anyone could ever ask for.
She pushed me to learn different things and grow as a writer, designer, and person. It is because of her and her guidance that I have emphasized learning new things and skills to become a multifaceted designer and marketer. I probably would have stuck with writing alone and not even explored graphic design if it weren’t for her encouraging the staff of the yearbook to learn different things. But now here I am, designing websites and graphics for a living and getting my MS in User Experience Design. She believed in my wild ideas like designing infographics for every page of my senior yearbook (which ended up winning awards) and guided me into being a better leader when I was Design Chief.
After high school I went on to be Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper at my college. While there I won several state and national level writing awards and the paper itself won the Pacemaker for the first time in 20 years (a big deal in college journalism). It’s because of the attention to detail and story telling she helped me develop that I was able to hone my skills and accomplish those things.
Her kind and encouraging words in addition to the advice she has offered me over the years have truly shaped me as a person, and I couldn’t be more thankful to have had that type of mentorship.
Erin was one of the first teachers/advisors that made me realize my potential with people, sales and general confidence in my unique personality and abilities. It started with her explaining how to use my skills and personality to connect and relate to people to build strong relationships. She worked to build my confidence in those skills, which have allowed me to further my career (one of my career accomplishments being named Director of Leasing for a multi-million dollar asset company with four different student housing buildings at the age of 23).
I truly do not know where I would be in life without the advice and foundation that I learned and developed with Erin during my years of knowing and learning from her. I can’t say enough things about how positive, helpful and understanding this wonderful human is. Any project you need guidance in, she is the one you want to hire for it!