I created the Mirror Project because as a first-generation college student and African-American I heard so many stereotypes and cautionary tales before I enrolled in college that I actually started to believe them. I believed them so much that despite taking calculus in high school, when I enrolled into college, I chose pre-calculus as my first math course in case I didn’t really learn ‘real’ calculus from my high school.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Going into that class, I surprised myself. I not only knew calculus, I knew when it was being taught poorly - which drove me to become a calculus teaching assistant! When I look back, holding myself back a math class isn’t as awful as knowing so many other prospective first-generation college students, like me, don’t even apply because the stereotypes and statistics are so discouraging!

However, I’m not an exception or anomaly. While I doubted my ability to be where I am today, I was exposed to people, mirrors, along my route that showed and reminded me who I could be.

But even that was mostly by chance.

Which makes me wonder, how many more people like me would have been sitting in my class if we were more intentional about exposing students to role models — or who I like to call ‘mirrors’ because they have the ability to reflect back who we already are and can be.

Thus, The Mirror Project was formed.

Project #1

Nadia goes to The Great Fishing Hole
fosters youth confidence to take on difficult tasks and encourages parents to allow them to! 

Project #2

COMING SOON
highlights different ways to be successful beyond the traditional career paths of engineer, doctor and lawyer. 

The Mirror Project believes children’s books 📚 can act as supplemental mirrors of what’s possible for prospective first generation college youth & their parents. We highlight champion stories to prepare students for the challenges that lay ahead,
so they question the task, not themselves.