Read the full article on Thrive, originally written by Kay Nolan for Points of Light.
It all started during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Lisa Young, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, had been accepted to Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her dream of becoming a doctor was coming true.
She had about six months before classes would start so she decided to look for a way to contribute to the community and help other young people like herself, who were from minority or disadvantaged backgrounds, and were coping with the complex and intimidating process of applying for college. A recent graduate of the University of Washington, Lisa remembered how challenging it had been for her to tackle college applications, seek financial aid and obtain good advice, such as considering attending a less expensive community college for the first few semesters to obtain credits that would transfer to a four-year university.
Take On College is a nonprofit based in the Seattle, Washington area, that was founded during the 2019-2020 school year. It provides volunteer mentors who offer free counseling to high school students who aspire to attend college – and according to Hong Ta, executive director and co-founder of Take On College, Lisa quickly proved to be one of the organization’s best mentors.
“In our mentorship and workshop programs combined, we’ve reached over 400 students from the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022, and Lisa is actually one of the mentors who has helped the highest number of students from those years,” said Hong.
Lisa explains: “Serving the first-generation, low-income community is very near and dear to my heart. I grew up low-income, in a big family. I have six younger siblings and one older sibling, so growing up in that kind of household made me aware of how much it costs to obtain anything like college counseling.”
“I think it’s great that medical schools are beginning to recruit students from underrepresented backgrounds — it’s an issue because some patients are not seeing doctors who look like them,” says Lisa. “At the same, I hope I’m helping to contribute to the idea that medicine is not only for people who come from money or who have physicians in their family,” she added. “I didn’t have any, and it was hard to not have anyone who could give me that real-world experience. In medicine, just as in any industry, connections are everything. So, I’m definitely trying to help people get those connections.”
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