“If you educate a man you educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” - African Proverb

College Enthusiast! College Fair Pioneer! Advocate for Youth!

Tuwanda Jackson is a contributing Forbes author, veteran educator and DMV native. She has over a decade of college and career counseling experience working with middle and high school students. Tuwanda’s love for education grew as an undergraduate student at Hampton University, where she was heavily involved in the Student Support Services (SSS) program, as well as completed her work study with Educational Talent Search and then she became a Ronald E. McNair Scholar. All of which are branches of TRiO programming. When the SSS program offered her many resources, such as mentorship, life skill development and more importantly, scholarship money to cover her costs during her senior year, it was in that moment that she wanted to help the misguided. As a McNair Scholar she conducted research at Virginia Tech regarding support systems for minority students attending  HBCUs and PWIs (Predominantly White Institution). This research planted the seed for her to work with college bound students. 

Upon graduating from Hampton University with a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, she began her educational career as a Senior Academic Advisor at Upward Bound, yet another branch of TRiO Programming, which drove her passion to educating students on college and career readiness. She realized that she could help students and their families with necessary resources for college and career readiness, just as the TRiO programs she had worked with in the past did with her while in college. Tuwanda also wished that she had that same knowledge during her high school years to be better prepared for college.

She later went on to obtain her Master of Education degree in Counseling Psychology with a concentration in Adolescent Studies and College Counseling at Howard University. Tuwanda’s love for her work with the youth stems from wanting to help youth not because she has to, but because she wants to help. She enjoys the intrinsic feeling of holistic growth in students.

In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, listening to music (like Erykah Badu, Beyonce, 2Chainz and 90s R & B), planning events, and doing arts & crafts.

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