Yes. Families, students and young adults anywhere in Massachusetts can work with a dedicated Blackburn mentor by video, from Boston and the North Shore to Worcester, the Pioneer Valley, the Berkshires and Cape Cod. Sessions are scheduled in Eastern time, the state’s only time zone, with text and phone check-ins between them. Our team is based in Los Angeles, so everything runs online.
A small state with long drives
Massachusetts looks compact on a map, but anyone who has driven from Pittsfield to Provincetown knows it is not. Traffic around Boston, winter storms and the trip over the bridges to the Cape all make a weekly in-person appointment harder than it sounds. Video removes the commute entirely: a student in the Berkshires and a young professional in Somerville get the same mentor, the same plan and the same schedule.
The regions, briefly
- Greater Boston: the city, Cambridge and the inner suburbs, plus MetroWest towns along the Mass Pike and the commuter rail lines.
- The North Shore and South Shore: coastal suburbs north and south of the city, many of them commuter towns.
- Central Massachusetts: Worcester and the towns around it, a region with its own health care and manufacturing base.
- Western Massachusetts: Springfield, the Pioneer Valley college towns and the rural Berkshires.
- Cape Cod and the Islands: year-round communities that change completely between summer and winter.
An economy built on knowledge work
Health care, higher education, biotechnology and life sciences, finance and software are the anchors of the Massachusetts economy, concentrated around Boston and Cambridge but spread well beyond. Tourism and fishing still matter on the coast and the Cape. For a young adult, that mix means a lot of opportunity in a few fields and a very high cost of living near the jobs, which is why so many people in their twenties here are juggling roommates, long commutes or a return to their parents’ house.
Students who stay, students who arrive
Massachusetts has a large public school system, a long tradition of independent and boarding schools, a public university system with campuses across the state, and community colleges in every region. It is also one of the country’s great college destinations: students arrive every fall from across the United States and the world, and plenty of Massachusetts graduates head out of state themselves.
That traffic in both directions shapes what families ask for:
- High school students in demanding schools who are capable but stretched thin, and who need a weekly plan they own. See mentoring for high school students.
- Students who came to Massachusetts for college and are far from home for the first time. Mentoring for college students covers what that looks like.
- Massachusetts students studying elsewhere whose parents want someone checking in, with permission, from week to week.
- Graduates deciding whether to stay in the Boston area and pay the rent, or move. Young adult mentoring is built for that decision.
How it works from Massachusetts
Each person works with one mentor in 30 or 60 minute video sessions, weekly or several times a week, on a weekly or monthly plan. Goals turn into specific steps for the days ahead, and the mentor follows up by text or phone in between. For high school students, a parent joins the intro call, helps agree the goals and receives regular updates. Massachusetts is three hours ahead of Los Angeles, so a 4 pm session after school is early afternoon for the mentor, and evenings work well for professionals. More detail is on our online mentoring page and our page on mentoring for families.
Pages for areas in Massachusetts
- Online mentoring in Boston
- Online mentoring in Boston MetroWest
- Online mentoring on the Massachusetts North Shore
Looking at a neighboring state? Browse mentoring by state.
Related
- Online mentoring in New Hampshire
- Online mentoring in Providence
- A parent’s guide to the first semester
- The first job after college
Common questions
What time zone are Massachusetts sessions in?
Eastern time, which covers the whole state. Sessions are booked in your local time, and the mentor handles the three-hour difference with Los Angeles.
My child is at college in Massachusetts but we live in another state. Can you help?
Yes. The student meets the mentor by video wherever they live, and with the student’s permission the mentor shares progress with family back home.
Do you meet anyone in person in Boston?
No. In-person sessions are only in Los Angeles; everyone in Massachusetts works with us by video, with text and phone contact between sessions.
Is this tutoring or college admissions help?
No. Mentors work on goals, habits, planning and follow-through, and can coordinate with a tutor or counselor a family already has.
Get started
Want to talk through what a mentor could do for someone in Massachusetts? Call (888) 305 5422, email contact@blackburnmentoring.com or start with a short assessment. A member of our team reviews every assessment personally and sets up a free intro call.