Spring Forward, an exclusive Medgar Evers College program, gets students back on the school track
Navigating a pathway to higher education need not be a maze of red tape. The recently launched Spring Forward: Bridges to the Baccalaureate program aims to help high school graduates and upperclassmen who may have started the journey but had to drop out, albeit at Medgar Evers College or another school.
Launched via a $90,000 grant from The Carroll and Milton Petrie Foundation, the goal of Spring Forward is to lend a hand up to these potential MEC students via a two-part process that involves plenty of direction and mentorship.
In this past fall semester, participants were assigned a paid internship opportunity where they had to put in between 12 to 15 hours a week. They were also expected to attend a handful of mandatory college preparatory workshops featuring presentations by representatives from the admissions and financial aid offices. Lastly, each participant was matched up with a MEC upperclassman for mentoring and coaching support.
Coming out of intercession, each Spring Forward student is registered for the spring semester. All must provide proof of high school or college attendance, with those falling under the latter category not being currently matriculating and coming over with a minimum 2.0 GPA. Recent high school graduates must not be carrying any college credits and college attendees must not have completed a prior degree.
Among the local non-profits providing internship opportunities are The First Baptist Church of Crown Heights, All Access Golf, Marcus Garvey Cornerstone and Soul2Soulz.
Click here to register for the program.
The main thrust of Spring Forward is to provide a ready-made support system that makes it as easy as possible for older students to get a second chance and also ease the fears of the high school student who may want to go to college, but not know where to begin. This program offers a road map of what to do while also affording real-time experience via an internship.
These reasons and more are why Project Coordinator Dequan Williams feels Spring Forward has such rich potential for those it aims to help.
“Spring Forward actually supports students who may have fear of going back to college,” he said. “We want to provide a safe environment for them to get them acclimated before they hop in. They’ll receive familiarity and a lot of information about coming back to college, so they’ll be more prepared to return rather than doing it by themselves. They can have a strong foundation behind them to push them in the right direction. A lot of students may not have a lot of people at home to help them and give them the information or motivation to push them to college.”
Currently, Spring Forward: Bridges to the Baccalaureate is a limited-time opportunity, with funding set to expire in the fall semester. Those interested in potentially extending the shelf life of the program can reach out to Mr. Williams at deq.williams@mec.cuny.edu.
