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Young Alumna Creates Tutoring Platform to help Students Transition to Online Learning
Louisa Rose ’19, a freshman at Lafayette College, created GO COVID CONNECT, a free online tutoring site, as a way to give back to her community as students are adjusting to online learning. Rose attended Tower Hill PreK through ninth grade before attending boarding school.
What is GO COVID CONNECT?
GO COVID CONNECT is a free online tutoring program where college students are paired with elementary and middle school students. It’s not just traditional tutoring, whether you need help in math or English, but it’s also a mentorship program and helps bring a little bit of social interaction via the virtual platform as well. If a full-time working parent, for example, needs some help during the day or needs someone to read to their kid, the tutor can also do that. It’s a great way for us college students to give back to our communities as well.
How does the platform work?
Tutors sign up with their email, times they’re available and the subjects they are able to tutor in and the students sign up with what they need help with and what times they’re available, and they are then matched based on times they’re available and subject compatibility. So this is a matching platform.
Why did you decide to create the platform?
I realized when I came home from school I had so much more time on my hands. At school I’m involved with academics, athletics, clubs and social life, and I came home and it was just academics—and I’m still talking with my friends but I’m not seeing them in person—and I realized I had all this time on my hands and I didn’t quite know what to do with it. I realized that if I had all this time, then so do all of my friends, and I thought that if we are going to some of the top institutions in the country and we have been taught by some of the best professors—why not share that knowledge with other people? I know that converting to online is very stressful for a lot of people, and I’m sure teachers were overwhelmed because they were given a short notice with all this, and if we can help to ease their burden in any way then why shouldn’t we do this?
Who does the platform benefit?
This platform benefits both college students and the younger students who are being tutored. Just from the social interaction standpoint it benefits everyone—I think we humans need social interaction, and meeting new people is always good. And for the college student, it gives you a purpose while you’re stuck at home—it gives you a reason to wake up in the morning that’s not just your academics. And for the younger students, it gives them a mentor to look up to that extends past just the academics.
Why did you decide to make the platform free?
There’s no other free platforms like it that are active. I don’t see a value in having to pay for this right now; I don’t think that makes sense. This is just simply to help people out. I think that’s all that matters right now. I think that people have enough on their plates, financially at least. And it was pretty much free for me to set up; the only cost was my time, and the only benefit I’m looking for is to do some good in the world in a time when people are surrounded by negativity.
What was your experience like at Tower Hill?
I absolutely loved Tower Hill. It was a family tradition to go to boarding school, but I loved Tower Hill. I had phenomenal teachers. I loved the small atmosphere, and that’s part of the reason why I chose a small college. I loved being able to have access to the teachers. I loved being able to get to know my classmates. The other thing I loved was being able to interact with people from all different backgrounds, like the international students. One friend in particular was Meredith Sui ’17; she was two years ahead of me, and I consider her now my sister, and we still talk every day. She’s at Columbia. And what’s really cool is because of that relationship and because of this program Tower Hill has, I can say that GO COVID CONNECT is an international platform now, because I have a tutor in China, and that wouldn’t have been possible without Tower Hill and the relationships I formed there.
