VIDEO: PENCIL Helps Bed-Stuy High School Students Write Their Own Futures

On Friday, forty 9th- through 11th-grade students from the Brooklyn Academy of Global Finance in Bed-Stuy got the unique opportunity to sit face-to-face with the best and the brightest in their career field.

Through the PENCIL Partnership Program that connects businesses with public schools, the students participated in a three-hour workshop with volunteers from Deloitte and Touche LLP, a professional services network firm, gaining skills, best practices and feedback from working professionals in the world of finance.

Around a dozen employees from Deloitte & Touche offices in New York and Chicago volunteered their time, providing students workshops on how to best explore career options, plan for the future, build an effective resume and sharpen their interview skills.

"We're very excited to have Pencil join us as a partner here," said Kavita Gupta, BAGF principal. "We're hoping that our students can take away something valuable from this mentorship and get a chance to learn what it's like to work in the real word. We're very pleased to be able to start our fourth year in this school with a Pencil partner."

The PENCIL Program currently works with close to 400 New York City public schools and more than 100,000 students throughout the five boroughs annually. The program is so successful in enriching student learning, it has become a model for cities nationwide.