WESTBOROUGH – Westborough and Hopkinton High School students recently created a non-profit organization called Learn It in order to assist fellow students with career paths and college applications.
Sunaina Pal, Piyusha Majgaonkar and Aryan Das founded this program and are assisted by their Communications Coordinator, Merav Sriram, and Social Media Manager, Mariah Boyce.
Learn It strives to provide high school students with academic support and knowledge when it comes to their career plans after graduation. This support consists of virtual one-on-one tutoring and webinars with various host volunteers from differing career fields and academic backgrounds. They are able to give specific information to students regarding which college suits them best and what career they might be interested in.
“We noticed that there weren’t very many free and affordable resources available for these kids so we decided to create resources for them. A lot of these students knew that they wanted to go to college but they just didn’t know how to go about starting the process,” said Majgaonkar.
When originally starting the program, Majgaonkar, Pal and Das had no idea how much of an impact they were about to have on students worldwide. Learn It officially launched this past March and has already amassed over 200 participants, including members from over 20 states and five countries.
A typical webinar will consist of a 50 minute presentation from a host, then concluding the session there is a 10 minute section carved out for Q&A’s from participating members. Since this program focuses on college prep, the hosts usually are people who work in college admissions as well as college advisors. Yet, Learn It also incorporates some hosts who are industry professionals from different career backgrounds to give students a better insight into that specific field.
“When we started the program we were hoping we could impact at least 50 people, but now we have over 200 consistent members. We have gotten feedback from members who have said these webinars are really helpful and are now applying to colleges. Our program’s biggest accomplishment is definitely just helping students realize what they want for their future,” said Majgaonkar.
Learn It is planning on expanding even further in the future. They are looking to partner with other organizations and apply for grants in order to receive additional funding for members to host workshops at their local libraries. This can assist in them reaching a wider audience consisting of younger students in middle and elementary school.
Learn It is always looking for new members, as well as more volunteers. Anyone is welcome and encouraged to apply.
