Many BSGE students have passed by the curious neighboring building to BSGE, with its yellow stripes on the outside and sleek design. But most are unaware of what inhabits this building, besides anxious BSGE Seniors taking their exams on a few days every May. This building is home to a Legal Outreach program, an educational and enriching program that some of the BSGE student body participate in.
The Summer Legal Outreach program (SLI) prepares kids from underserved communities in New York City to participate in higher education programs. They teach kids how to develop skills for the real world and build confidence. This program starts from the summer before 8th grade to the end of the 12th grade. Students attend this program during the summer and after school to work on their communication and life skills. College Bound’s help in boosting self confidence appeals to a wide range of students, even those that are not very interested in law. Legal Outreach has two programs, SLI and College Bound. If a student joins SLI, he or she is automatically eligible for College Bound. All the students in College Bound get accepted to the top 50 universities such as Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Cornell and other selective universities.
However, this year many students quit this program because of how challenging and rigorous it was. This being the case, the Legal Outreach Program decided to take only ten students this year because of the number of dropouts. An applicant from our school, Yashna Ahmed 18′ says “this program will help encourage me and will successfully help me become a great speaker.” Also, since this 4 year program includes internships outside of Legal Outreach, she says “it will help me achieve good character and educate and further aid me in pursuing things I love.”
This program is designed for committed and determined students to compete with others for a chance to attend a prestigious Ivy-League college. An experienced student, Kohen Rahman ’18, who went to SLI, which is the program before College Bound, says that “I wanted to do this program because I thought it would be a way to develop better communication skills and help me be a better public speaker.” He explained, “I found criminal law to be interesting and wanted to learn more about it. SLI had taught my peers and I in a unique way, because we did a lot of hands-on activities including a mock tutorial in front of a real judge in an actual courthouse.” Rahman continued, “I didn’t know about College Bound at first but that was also another perk. It’s a great program that pushes the bar for all students with help in school, writing classes, as well as summer activities such as internships at law firms.”
The BACC Rag 