ALABAMA STUDENTS FOUND PROGRAM HELPING STUDENTS GET THEIR GEDS

People who spent much of their younger years incarcerated often face a difficult time moving forward with their education. In a lot of cases, it can take an immense amount of effort attempting the GED.

But graduating University of Alabama senior Sumona Gupta and rising junior Marian Bolin founded a community program designed for assisting those who need help rounding out their education.

Mentoring and Academic Partnership, or MAP as it’s dubbed, has UA students volunteering as tutors helping participants catch up on everything they missed from school.

“Some people may think the GED is relatively easy, or if you’ve graduated high school then you can easily pass the GED, but it’s actually a very difficult test,” Gupta said.

The GED is timed and takes several hours, and there aren’t many free resources or tutors available for students attempting it.

They had 10 volunteer tutors helping six teens in the program their first semester. It came to an early end when COVID-19 hit, but the organization is hoping to resume when face-to-face instruction is OK’d again.