Aiming High

A mentoring program connects Eagle undergrads with high school students. 

For many high schoolers, particularly those from families who’ve never sent a kid off to college, attending a university like Eastern can seem like the impossible dream. Completing the right classes, preparing for aptitude tests, touring campuses, completing federal financial aid forms and admission applications: for the uninitiated, it’s a lot to ask.

Guidance counselors can, and do, provide help. But what if there was someone else to talk to? Someone who might be closer in age, maybe with similar life experiences?

Eastern’s new Aspire Program aims to provide those voices. The program, funded with grant support from Innovia and the Washington Student Achievement Council, puts Eagle undergraduates in local high schools to support, advise and mentor college contenders who might not otherwise make it to matriculation.
 

Eastern’s new Aspire Program puts Eagle undergraduates in local high schools to support, advise and mentor college contenders who might not otherwise make it to matriculation.

Along the way they are also there to provide guidance for those students whose best move might be military service or vocational training.

Mentoring is an excellent way for college students to give back to their communities while enhancing their resumes, says EWU’s Jasmin Davis, an MBA student who serves as Aspire’s manager. Students earn a stipend while working six hours per week, helping to make participation more manageable while not interfering with their academic pursuits.

 “The Aspire Program is about connecting college students with high schoolers to help them figure out what they want to do after high school, whether that be a two-year or a four-year college, a vocational school or the military,” says Davis. “We want to help them navigate that pathway.”