About Learning Unlimited
Learning Unlimited was founded in 2007 by a group of alumni who had been involved with Splash at MIT and Stanford, and wanted to make educational opportunities more readily available for all students. With the mission of creating educational opportunities for high school and middle school students, and to provide leadership and teaching opportunities for college students’ Learning Unlimited strives to engage students of all ages in an educational setting to share and discover their passions. We accomplish our mission through our core values:
Choice
Learning Unlimited encourages university students to choose what they most want to teach, using their passion as a resource for effective teaching. Meanwhile, pre-college students choose their own courses, often among hundreds of options, at each of our programs. In this way they become personally invested in their learning. Research has found that choice is a key component to building internal motivation.
Opportunity
Learning Unlimited believes that every student should have access to exciting educational experiences. We work to spread our programs as broadly as possible, and to ensure that all programs are either low-cost (with fee waivers available for those with need) or completely free.
We encourage children who attend LU’s programs to use Splash as a jumping off point to more low-cost or free educational oppertunities to further cultivate their passions. Often times these programs are run by the same students who run Splash.
Accessibility
Learning Unlimited encourages its programs to make teaching and leadership opportunities available to all students at each university, so that its programs are accessible to all university students (and often community members). Additionally, we seek to make programs open admission with no application process, or a minimal one to gauge student interest. Thus, our programs are accessible to all pre-college students.
Autonomy
Each chapter of Learning Unlimited is an independent organization led by college students. This autonomy builds their leadership skills and self-reliance. Each teacher at a Learning Unlimited program has the autonomy to design their own course without intense oversight. Each student has the autonomy to choose their courses, navigate the campus on their own, and be where they want, when they want. The same research that validates the importance of choice in building internal motivation shows the importance of autonomy.
For more details on our work, view what we do.
