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A mentorship initiative

The road to university
shouldn’t depend on
who you already know.

PathForge connects young professionals with high school students in under-resourced communities, so that good guidance isn’t a matter of luck.

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How do I even know if university is right for me?

— a text message from a student we’d never met

That question arrived from a student a year behind us in high school. Her school’s guidance office had a waitlist. Her parents hadn’t been through the process themselves. She had nowhere obvious to turn, and a decision in front of her that felt enormous.

We had been her. Four years earlier, we navigated the same uncertainty with the same thin set of resources: a rumor about which courses mattered, a half-remembered tip from an older cousin, a guess dressed up as a plan.

We decided that wasn’t a good enough reason to leave the gap unfilled. So we built PathForge: a way to put a real person, who has actually done this, on the other end of the question.

Co-founded by

Muhammad Ahmad Afridi

Bachelor of Health Sciences, Queen’s University

Abdullah Bhuiyan

Bachelor of Health Sciences, Queen’s University

Both of us studied health sciences at Queen’s University, and both of us came to mentorship the same way: by needing it first. PathForge grew out of a shared belief that good guidance should not depend on who your family already knows, and a commitment to advocating for students in communities that are too often left to figure it out alone.

How it works

We build the road together,
not hand over a map.

1

We listen first

Every student starts with a conversation about where they actually are, not a generic intake form. We ask what they need before we decide what to offer.

2

We match deliberately

Students are paired with a mentor whose path, field, or background genuinely overlaps with their questions, not just whoever is next on a list.

3

We stay through the decision

Mentorship continues through applications, scholarship searches, and the harder weeks of doubt, until a real decision is made and acted on.

Where we’ve gotten to

Still early. Already real.

5

partner schools

Including ISNA High School, Olive Grove High School, and Erindale Secondary School, after rebuilding our rollout around what students actually asked for.

150+

students mentored

Across one-on-one mentorship and professional skills workshops run in partnership with local educators.

2022

founded

Started by two recent high school graduates who remembered exactly what they didn’t know.

In their words

What people who’ve worked with us say.

“What stood out to me about PathForge was how genuinely the team listened before they ever proposed a plan. Muhammad took the time to understand exactly where my son was stuck, and adjusted the mentorship around that instead of running a one-size-fits-all program. You could tell the whole team cared about getting it right, not just getting it done.”

M

Mustafa Khan

Parent of a PathForge mentee

“Before PathForge, I didn’t really have anyone to ask the basic questions to, the ones that felt too small to bring to a guidance counsellor. Muhammad never made me feel like a question was too simple. He’d actually walk through my options with me instead of just telling me what to do, and he’d follow up weeks later to see how things turned out. The whole team felt like that, genuinely invested, not just going through the motions.”

J

Jacob Wong

PathForge mentee

“As an educator, I’ve seen a lot of student-led initiatives come and go. PathForge was different. Muhammad approached our partnership with real professionalism, followed through on every commitment, and was constantly looking for evidence of what was actually working before scaling anything up. That kind of scholarly, reflective approach is rare to see from someone so early in their career.”

E

Elizabeth Cowen

Partner school educator

“Tell me more about how you learn.”

We learned, early on, that the easiest mistake to make is leading with answers. A mentor’s job isn’t to hand over a finished plan. It’s to ask better questions, often, until the student’s own plan comes into focus. We try to staff every part of PathForge, from how we run sessions to how we expand to new schools, around that same instinct: ask, listen, then build.

Get involved

There’s a place for you in this, however you found us.

I’m a student

Looking for guidance on courses, applications, or whether university is even the right next step. Start with a short conversation, no commitment required.

Request a mentor

Most needed right now

I’d like to mentor

Bring your field, your path, and a few hours a month. We match you with a student whose questions actually fit what you know.

Become a mentor

I represent a school

Bring PathForge to your students as a complement to existing guidance resources, not a replacement for them.

Start a partnership