The Missing Room
Medha started 14 years ago to help young people start rewarding careers of their choice. We have always believed that colleges are the foundation of that journey. They are where students spend some of their most formative years. And yet, many move through college without any real conversation about work, purpose, or life after the last semester. We wanted to change that. Not by making grand interventions, but by being present where students already are. That is how the idea of the Medha career centre came to life.
So in 2015, the first career centre came up at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gorakhpur University. It is a modest room tucked away on the third floor of the Delegacy Bhavan. If you walk past too quickly, you might miss it. But step inside, and you are in an entirely new world. Hand-painted walls, bright colours, handwritten notes pinned up with pride. The space carries the energy, hopes, and dreams of young people. It is also a place where many students use a laptop for the first time. A space where they are not rushed or judged. Where they can be, and grow, at their own pace.
I have spent years watching those small, everyday transformations unfold. Students like Neha, who travel thirty-five kilometres every morning to improve her digital skills. For her, learning Excel and PowerPoint is not just about a certificate. It is about taking a step toward something she has imagined but not yet reached. Students like Astha, Pratibha, and Fahad, who found their first paid opportunities through the centre, and with that, their first sense of independence and dignity.
The career centre does not look or feel like a traditional classroom. You will not find blackboards or lecture notes. Instead, you will see students sitting in a circle, reflecting on their strengths. One trying out a presentation for the first time, another exploring design on Canva. Activities, projects, and conversations replace rote learning. What could have felt like another training becomes a journey of self-awareness, filled with missteps, laughter, and growth.
These spaces were created with intention. Not to replace college, but to complement it. To fill the gap between education and employment, and to make that bridge walkable for more young people. Here, they explore internships, learn workplace behaviour, build CVs, practice interviews, and begin to see themselves not just as students, but as professionals in the making.
And over time, the space stops being just ours. Faculty start visiting. Placement officers begin connecting students to us. Employers come in not only to hire, but to mentor, to guide, and to understand. Together, they become part of the ecosystem that makes the centre thrive. What begins as a room becomes a shared space of possibility, shaped by everyone who steps into it.
Since that first centre, more than 35 such spaces have come up across northern India. No two look alike, but each one holds the same purpose — to give students the space, support, and opportunity to become who they want to be.
Over 7,000 young people have walked through these doors. Some stay for an afternoon. Some return every week. Some come back as mentors. And that is the quiet power of the right kind of nurturing. A space that listens, that welcomes, that stays. A space that gently reminds every young person who walks in — that they do not need to be empowered. The power is already within them! All they need is a place to begin, and the belief that becoming is always within reach.