SRI LANKAN STUDENTS FROM TOP UNIVERSITIES INAUGURATE A CONFERENCE

SL2College held its first higher education conference on August 9th at the Royal College Union Skills Center, Colombo 07. It was on the Undergraduate Application process to US & Canada and hosted by SL2College volunteers who are students hailing from top universities like Harvard, MIT and Cornell in the US, and University of Toronto in Canada. The event was free of charge to students and attended by nearly 100 participants, including parents, students and academic staff from high schools. The conference was led by Sabrina Ghouse, a second-year undergraduate student at Harvard University. It covered topics such as application requirements, funding and work opportunities, applying to professional programs, and life outside of university. The undergraduate application season officially began on August 1st and ends when applications are due on January 1st. Students interested in applying to undergraduate studies are encouraged to join the SL2College US and Canada Facebook groups. Sabrina reminds everyone that there are lots of essays to complete and tests to take, so students should make use of the Facebook groups to post questions, join the Mentor Program and seek advice now itself. My colleagues who hosted the conference with me - Raeed Deen, Tamara Fernando, Nihara Gunasekara, Rajinda Gunasekara, Jayaruwan Gunathilake, Casimira Karunaratne, Gabrielle Mohamed, Nikita Samaratunga, and Lukshmee Saravanapavan in the US; and Oshadhi Karunasekara and Anne Fernando in Canada, want to help Sri Lankan students to perfect their applications and to improve their chances of getting into a competitive school with financial aid or a scholarship, she further added. SL2College was able to secure its first corporate sponsorship from John Keells Holdings PLC (JKH) as they sponsored this event. The TNL Rocks radio station and ITN provided air time and advertisements. We would like to thank all the speakers, sponsors, Dhammavahini TV Station, Rasika Prasad from CastriCreativa, Maleen Jayasuriya from SLMUN, members of the audience, and volunteers who helped in various ways to make this event a success. SL2College hopes to make this an annual event.

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New Country Coordinator for Sri Lanka

Thiran Sellahewa is a 3rd year undergraduate at the University of Moratuwa, majoring in Mechanical engineering and is an old boy of St. Thomas College Bandarawela and Mount Lavinia. He is one of the latest additions to the SL2College team, working as the country coordinator for Sri Lanka. Thiran believes that nothing is impossible for a group of committed individuals and commends SL2College for the amazing job done up to now in promoting higher education opportunities among Sri Lankan students. He hopes to help SL2College achieve its goals and be a positive addition to the team. Thiran was appointed as the new Country Coordinator for Sri Lanka with effect from 8th August, 2012. Welcome Thiran!

Collaboration with SLSA in NZ

SL2College is collaborating with members of Sri Lankan Students Association at Otago University, New Zealand, to set up a new country team there. Nehan Munasinghe, MSc student in Physiology at the University of Otago and outgoing president at the Sri Lankan Students Association (SLSA) there, is the Country Coordinator. Several members of SLSA have joined the team as advisers. Welcome All! A t-shirt for SL2C team members was designed and printed in July 2012. The process was handled by SLEF team members. 30 t-shirts were printed initially and depending on the number of requests and feedback towards the design, more can be printed in future. Price of a t-shirt is Rs.980. Please reserve yours by writing to lakmal@sl2college.org.

SL2C 100X100 campaign reaches 70%!

To date, the 100X100 fundraising campaign has raised $6592! We are steadily reaching 70% of the target amount. The FR team on behalf of SL2College would like to thank all donors once again for the contribution and hope to receive the support of team members to reach the final 30% of the campaign. As a source of inspiration, we would like to share a message from one of the donors who contributed $1000 to the campaign: I am very happy to see that you have requested for this cause in helping fellow students like you who are trying to acquire knowledge in a developed country. I know how hard I planned & worked to educate both my children in USA and I am very happy to see my childrens achievements. I feel all parents are keen to provide a sound education to their children and I have made a small contribution towards your worthy cause. Take a moment to reflect on your efforts that went into making SL2College a better experience for your fellow Sri Lankans. FR team hopes that many more like-minded donors would support this cause.

T-Shirts

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Brain Gain Team

There is a new team for the brain gain project. Kanchana Ambagahawita and Chamil Hathurusinghe will be focusing on the Brain Gain portal proposal and building a list of resources required by potential Sri Lankans willing to move back. Kirthevasan Kandasamy will be working on the internship part of the project, where we work with companies in Sri Lanka to publicize their internships and help them get Sri Lankan students studying abroad/locally to apply. We also have a Q&A which can be filled by returnees to Sri Lanka: http://links.sl2college.org/braingain-interview.

Meet a team member!

Sabrina Ghouse joined SL2College in May 2012. She went to Elizabeth Moir School in Sri Lanka before starting her undergraduate studies at Harvard University. She began the US Undergraduate Mentor program on Facebook by starting a group called Sri Lankans applying to the United States (SAUS), which currently has around 700 members and over 30 mentors. Sabrina manages the group and ensures that students get responses to their questions in a timely manner. In August 2012, Sabrina organized a conference in Sri Lanka, for students applying to the U.S. and Canada. Over 70 private and public schools were invited, and the event will soon be broadcasted on TV. Sabrinas mission at SL2College involves hosting information sessions, visiting schools and reaching out to students to help them at levels other than just providing information and mentoring. It is her hope that every Sri Lankan who has attended a top university in the world would join the SL2College database. Sabrina believes that more outreach needs to be done to students both within and outside of Colombo, and that high school principals and guidance counselors need to get educated about SL2C in order to use it as their permanent resource. Finally, Sabrina has this to add about SL2C: Its a lot of fun to be part of this mostly virtual network! Ive met some very motivated and brilliant people in just 5 months of being with them.

Facebook Campaign
SL2College launched an awareness week on Facebook for 2 weeks in September to spread its message among Sri Lankan students. Testimonials by SL2C members on its various services and accomplishments were published and we had a sponsored advertisement. The campaign was able to attract 1543 likes on the SL2College FB page. Also 73% of 2100 unique visitors on our web site were directly generated from the FB page. The SL2College team would like to thank everyone who supported the campaign to make it a great success.

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Inaugural live streaming seminar on the Postgraduate Application Process to the USA & Canada
SL2College held a conference on the Graduate Application Process to USA and Canada on 23rd September live via YouTube. The speakers comprised of graduate students and faculty members from universities including MIT, USC, NYU and University of Missouri Science and Technology in the USA, and University of Western Ontario, University of Manitoba and University of British Columbia in Canada. We had approximately 200 people watching the event live from Sri Lanka and around the world. SL2College expects this live session to be the first of many such conferences. The video of the seminar is available on our YouTube Channel at www.youtube. com/sl2college and on our website at www. sl2college.org/seminar. As part of the SL2College Graduate Seminar Series, we did an interview with Professor Saman Amarasinghe from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, where he speaks about picking a research topic and a good advisor when doing a PhD. This video is also available on our You Tube channel, www.youtube.com/sl2college.

Sinhala/Tamil Editors urgently needed

The editorial team is looking for Sinhala & Tamil editors and writers. We plan to start publishing articles in both languages in order to reach a more diverse group of students who may need our guidance. We expect a minimal time commitment of about 4 hours per month. Please email Shanie Liyanagamage at shanie@sl2college.org if youre interested or have any questions.

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