Last week, I was having lunch with friends when someone offhandedly pointed out that graduation was almost exactly six months away. Then I found out what having a stroke feels like.

The rest of the weekend was filled with subtle milestones — my last football tailgate, the last first basketball game, planning for graduation — and more than a little introspection on how much has changed for me and my friends in the last four years. Without nauseating you with my senior sentimentality, suffice it to say my life would be much duller and my perspective much narrower in scope without my experiences here at Vanderbilt.

Unfortunately, I can no longer have these thoughts without remembering the insane number of children in our country who will never get the chance to be so irreversibly changed by their own college education.

This semester I enrolled in High Poverty Youth, a service-learning course that pairs participants with students from low income schools in Nashville for weekly mentoring sessions. It may not be the most academically stringent class I have ever taken, but I have learned more sitting in a 10th grade English class at Maplewood High School than could ever be taught in a 50-minute lecture in a Wilson auditorium.

For example, I learned how difficult it is for a low-income student in an overcrowded, under-funded, inner city public school to get into college, and that all too often this is a result of a simple lack of resources. Human resources.

Think about your own college search experiences: SAT prep, FAFSA forms, high school transcripts, campus visits … happy memories? I didn’t think so. It is not an easy process, but you probably didn’t do it alone. Now think how high the level of difficulty rises once you factor in poorly trained teachers with no time for recommendations, overworked counselors buried in paperwork and parents who most likely never went through the process themselves.

A couple months ago, I wrote an article concerning the state of public education in the U.S., as well as here in Nashville. The point made at the piece’s conclusion, that little or no immediate action could be reasonably expected from college-age students, drew criticism from students and professors alike.

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s admitting when I am wrong. In fact, you will probably never hear me do it again, so pay attention.

There is something you can do. Beyond that, there is something you should do. A huge portion of this problem is a simple lack of information, information that you and I have at our fingertips, and to keep it to ourselves while children mere blocks away from our university miss out on the college experience is nothing short of criminal.

Unfortunately, Vanderbilt’s High Poverty Youth class will not be taught next semester, but there are a number of ways in which we as students can reach out to the youth of Nashville right now. Organizations like Vanderbuddies, VSVS and Big Brothers Big Sisters provide such opportunities, along with countless other mentoring programs across the area.

We hear a lot of talk these days about keeping our campus “green” by recycling old papers and plastic bottles, but I think it’s about time we started focusing on recycling knowledge. It may not be as easy as tossing your trash in as separate container, but the need is just as great, and the stakes are astronomical.

Carolyn Pippen is senior in the College of Arts and Science. She can be reached at carolyn.m.pippen@vanderbilt.edu.