After three years, a new Northwestern student entrepreneurship group is finally taking off.
The Social Entrepreneurship Network for Undergraduates, comprised of students interested in socially conscious business models, is partnering with Evanston Township High School to tutor students.
“We shifted our focus this year,” said Hyan Park, a Weinberg junior and member of the new group. “We wanted to see what the issues in our local community might be and what can we act upon for the school year, so then we started getting in touch with educational leaders.”
The group found a need for student mentors in the high school’s Advancement Via Individual Determination program, a national college preparatory system which offers after-school tutorial sessions. This quarter will be the first for a cadre of student volunteers who will help run the tutorials.
Member Moshini Sivasubramaniam said the program aims to work with students who show potential but are at risk of not going to college.
“There is a huge disparity of kids getting into Ivy League schools and then half the student body not even getting into college,” the Weinberg junior said. “The key important thing is that they are motivated students who just don’t have the skills.”
Part of the group objective in bringing NU students to ETHS is to engage the high school students in thinking about potential fields of study for college. Park said she remembers deciding on a college major without ever having a formal introduction to those classes in high school. This new program aims to change that.
“We want Northwestern students to go there and … teach classes,” Park said. “Not math or science, but things that are actually interesting to us and to them. It could be about the stock market if you want.”
The NU student volunteers will work with about 15 high school students each, mostly in the 9th and 10th grades.
Joe Lischwe, a founder, said the high school students also benefit from working with NU student mentors because of the small age gap between them.
“I remember high school like it was yesterday, ” the Weinberg junior said. “The stresses of trying to do everything are tough, and if the (student) mentors there are 40 or 50 years old, they don’t remember.”
The idea for the group began during Lischwe’s freshman year when he took an economics course about social entrepreneurship; he noticed that NU lacked any student entrepreneurship groups and decided to start one.
“With businesses you have these models that are to gain profit,” Lischwe said. “(Social entrepreneurship’s) main goal is to be sustainable and for social welfare.”
He said the group is distinct from other volunteer groups in that it tries to have a sustainable business model. It also veers from the course of a standard volunteer group because it will receive a budget from the high school – Advancement Via Individual Determination typically pays its tutors. In keeping with its goal of maintaining social welfare, the group has chosen to pool those funds together and give it back to the students.
Sivasubramaniam said ideas for the student fund include creating a scholarship or developing a research project and then holding a competition for a reward.
“We just want to get them interested and learning and going into the college environment,” she said. “And if they take on challenging courses, they can learn as they go.”
The new program will be launched this Thursday.
