The University of Alabama Center for Ethics and Social Responsibility partnered with the programs Impact Alabama and A+ CollegeReady to create a service-learning course in which current college students tutor high school students in subjects such as chemistry and calculus for three weeks in July in order to prepare them for the academic demands college courses pose.

Fifteen UA students, along with 39 students from UAB, UAH and Birmingham-Southern College, tutored 85 high school sophomores and juniors from A+ CollegeReady program schools from Birmingham City, Jefferson County, Huntsville City and Madison County. The goal of the program is to academically prepare students who have registered for an advanced placement class in the subjects of biology, chemistry or calculus in the upcoming academic school year, a UA news release stated. The students who taught the subjects had taken AP classes as high school students or have taken the subjects at the university level.

The student-tutors also received extra training.

“The college students agreed to spend a week learning how to tutor and guide the students in math and science, biology, chemistry and calculus, currently, and then the actual tutoring is for the three following weeks,” Olivia Grider, research project coordinator for the UACESR said. “This is through the A+ CollegeReady program, (which is) working hard to serve underserved high schools in the Birmingham and Huntsville areas.”

This initiative is an example of how college students can serve high school students—a symbiotic relationship, as both parties benefit.  The high school students are able to obtain knowledge about the AP subjects, and the college students are able to learn how to teach, guide and tutor, all while sharpening their own skills.

Micaiah Thomas, a junior, said being a part of the program was demanding, but it was time well spent.

“Thursday morning, I walked into the lobby and saw that many of the students I had been working with all week were studying and working practice problems out of the book,” she said. “It was rewarding to see pure excitement and joy on their faces as they went above and beyond in the course work. This program is a vessel to open doors for students whose excellence is not in the making, but is here now.”