Access Changes Everything

Aaron Cespedes talks the way he organizes: with urgency, precision, and a plan.

At Borough of Manhattan Community College, where he serves as a student leader, he describes himself as a “do it now” person. If something needs to move, he moves it. If a task is handed to him, he executes. He prefers calls to long email chains. He prefers action.

That urgency comes from experience.

He grew up in the projects, and he learned early that advancement is shaped by access. Who answers questions. Who explains how decisions are made inside the institutions he hopes to enter. Who speaks plainly about what needs to be fixed.

That search for access led him to The City Tutors.

Entertainment had been on his mind for years, starting with the way he watches movies. He pays attention to setting and subtext. He likes films that tell a story about the city without announcing it. He often brings up Saturday Night Fever as an example, a movie that carries a whole map of New York inside it: the pull of Manhattan, the texture of Brooklyn, the way neighborhoods shift as money moves. He follows that thread from the screen into real life, toward questions about housing, development, and who gets to shape a neighborhood’s future.

Through The City Tutors, he connected with Jamie Parrish, a digital media buyer at Paramount. He wanted specifics about digital strategy, how campaigns are built, and what hiring managers respond to inside a company that influences culture at scale/

“She doesn’t hold back,” he said. “She gives it to you the way you’re supposed to hear it.”

They worked on how he positioned himself and how he refined his resume. What stayed with him was the clarity about expectations inside a large media company and how teams communicate what strong performance looks like.

As his leadership at BMCC expanded, he said he had reached a point where the harder part was deciding where to focus.

Through The City Tutors, he used mentorship to examine possibilities from the inside. He stayed with Paramount and added a second vantage point by connecting with Michael Dare, who works in events and brand experience. Parrish helped him understand digital execution and marketing decisions. Dare helped him understand how brands show up in physical space, how partnerships are structured, and how large-scale experiences are delivered.

Together, the conversations gave him a broader understanding of Paramount. The organization later hosted an event at Paramount’s headquarters, bringing him into the space connected to the work.

“It reminded me I have an opportunity of getting in that kind of field,” he said.

After that stretch, he stepped back. Burnout, he said, the first he had experienced. During that period he still saw the invitations and the opportunities and wished he had the energy to join.

What he appreciated most was the flexibility built into The City Tutors. He could step away, recover, and still know the door would be open.

When he had his energy back, he returned.

At an event held at the Yale Club, Cespedes found himself in a room he might once have walked past without entering. The setting was formal, the kind of place that signals tradition and closed circles.

He had heard the advice before: in a room like that, a person either acts like he belongs or acts like he doesn’t.

The City Tutors gave him the chance to make the choice he wanted to make, to say yes, he deserved to be in the room, and to move through it on his own terms, introducing himself, starting conversations, and following up.

“I felt comfortable,” he said. “I didn’t feel intimidated at all.”

He left with clearer ambitions about what he wanted next, including graduate study.

At another City Tutors event, an orchestra experience, he spoke about the access he got to build cultural fluency, and how having these experiences prevent him from being locked out of opportunities. 

Back at BMCC, he now directs students toward the organization with the same urgency he brings to everything else. At a recent club fair, he explained the opportunity in practical terms: a place where people who answer your questions; mentors who read your materials and speak plainly; events that place you inside institutions you want to understand.

“The City Tutors really give students experiences that close the gap.”