Urban Arts teaches video game design as a pathway to college and career. Plus, we offer a free College Access program, boosting futures in STEM and the arts. Our pilot College Fellows program hired five alumni as advisors, providing paid positions with pre-professional training, a schedule that works for them, and a resume building block.
For young people, the most authentic guides are those who have just walked the walk, which is why we invest in our alumni with paid, purpose-driven opportunities to support the next generation. Through the College Fellows program, current college students bring their real-world experience, empathy, and hard-earned knowledge back to current high school seniors, offering weekly near-peer mentorship across applications, essays, financial aid, and everything in between. It works. 100% of Urban Arts seniors are accepted to college and they’ve earned $71M in scholarships since 2020.
Within the 31 students served in the Fellows program, they earned $8.4M in aid.
“When I designed the College Fellows Program, I was betting on something I’d seen firsthand: the most powerful guide for a first-generation student navigating college is often someone who just did it,” says Joelle Blackstock, Director, Post-Secondary Success. “What I didn’t fully anticipate was how much the Fellows themselves would grow. Five undergraduate students—all Urban Arts alumni, all first-generation college-goers, spent a year showing up every week for someone who needed them. And in doing so, they became sharper advisors, stronger communicators, and more confident leaders.”
Congrats to this year’s Fellows:
Sydney Eze, Barnard College, Neuroscience, May 2027
Kelly Garcia, RIT, Software Engineering, May 2028
Irene Leung, Binghamton, Philosophy, May 2028
Faiza Mohamed, NYU, Integrated Design And Media, May 2028
Giselle Muriel, Barnard, Computer Science, May 2027
“Urban Arts instilled a lot of confidence in me, not only just working in groups and just putting myself out there, but skills that really made me competitive. I wanted to pay it forward, to be a friendly face and support figure within a program that I know I really benefited from,” says Sydney.
“Being a first-gen student, it’s pretty difficult to navigate college by yourself,” says Kelly. “The best part about this job is being able to help seniors and really expand my own skills—organization skills and communication skills, just learning how to solve problems.”
“I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do,” says Giselle. “And because of Urban Arts, I found my path and I am studying that now at Barnard.” Now she has a group of seniors she guides. “It’s really rewarding to just be on the other side and see results firsthand. Like, they’ll say ‘I just got accepted to this school!’ And I’m, like, ‘Oh, my God!’ That was just me just a couple years ago.”
“My advice to students is to start collecting stories and moments as they come up, and they can come really in handy when writing essays,” says Irene. “It’s kind of hard to suddenly try to think of everything that happened.”
Faiza says, “Hearing how much of an impact you’ve made in your students’ application process is the best part about being a College Fellow.”
100% of advisees would recommend the program. “This program turned a stressful and confusing process into something much more manageable. It gave me guidance, reassurance, and confidence.”
The program is a win-win-win: alumni gain meaningful leadership and income doing what they’re great at, high school seniors receive personalized, relatable support, and our entire community grows stronger as success is shared forward.
Want to ensure pathways to economic mobility for all? Reach out at Development@urbanarts.org
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