Hands down, my favorite part of our Friday class is hearing about where all of my friends and classmates are working. Every week, three fellows are selected to speak for ten minutes about the mission, office culture, and organizational structure of their organization. It's amazing how different our experiences are and fascinating to hear about the inner workings of famous nonprofits, congressional offices, and federal agencies.

For last Friday's class, I had the pleasure of getting up on my soapbox and giving a presentation on my summer internship at the National College Access Network. Simply put, the field of college access focuses on making sure that more qualified students have a greater chance of attending and graduating from college. My organization aims to strengthen local programs and statewide networks by providing its members with services such as grants, consulting, seminars, advocacy work, as well as a few others.

I have been working in the field of college access since getting involved with an OSU student organization a few years ago, and so I was quite lucky to discover the opportunity at NCAN. I'm not the only one of my classmates who is an absolutely perfect match for the organization they're interning for this summer. Believing wholeheartedly in the mission of an organization makes it much easier to hop out of bed in the morning, ready to work. Thanks to this experience, I now know that I'll need to work in a high-impact, mission-driven organization after I graduate. There's certainly plenty of work to be done.

Part of my presentation emphasized that college access issues are highly relevant through the budget and debt limit discussions. Pell Grants, the historically well-protected dollars that go directly to low-income students for college, are now up for huge cuts. The impact could be detrimental for students who count on Pell dollars to pay the bills.

Please check out these links for opportunities to get involved in the fight to save pell or the field of college access more generally:

The National College Access Network

The "Save Pell" initiative

The Education Trust's Letter Writing Campaign

Teach For America

I Know I Can (Columbus-based access program)

Also, don't hesitate to email me with any questions - redd.33@osu.edu.

Steven