Alumni

Leaders Then & Now: Phellix Rodriguez

CollegeBound Initiative Class of 2009 ● Gettysburg College 2013 ● Entrepreneur: Video and Content Producer

My director of college counseling (DCC) and CBI made me feel supported and excited about my college journey. They exposed me to a wide variety of colleges and went the extra mile to ensure that my family and I fully understood the college application process. While a student at Gettysburg College, CBI also provided me with a paid job as a College Coach during the summers. I feel so blessed and fortunate to have gone through this program, it has changed the trajectory of my life.

This is an old photo of Phellix with his high school classmates. They are huddled together in a school hallway. Phellix is in the center wearing a Gettysburg college hoodie.

After graduating from Gettysburg College, I moved to Miami to become a 4th Grade Math Teacher via Teach For America. Upon completion of the program, I moved back home to New York City and continued my educational career as a College Counselor at Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation, a community-based organization in East New York, Brooklyn.

I feel so blessed and fortunate to have gone through this program, it has changed the trajectory of my life.

During my time as a counselor, I had a caseload of over 200 students and needed to find an effective way to communicate to my program participants. I started creating college counseling-related videos and sharing them via Facebook and Instagram. As a result, student engagement increased and I soon began to create content for the other divisions in the organization such as Youth Family Services, Career & Education, Community Organizing, and many more. That’s when I realized that many organizations needed to create relevant video and photo content for their particular community.

I founded my media company PHE PHILMS LLC in 2017. Since then I have created videos for the New York City Department of Education, GOOGLE, CUNY, Teach For America, SL Network, and many other nonprofits and organizations. I really enjoyed working with alumni on the CBI project and being a part of new initiatives to engage alumni while creating resources for high school students.

Growing up my father was a videographer and as a teenager I’d go with him to gigs as his assistant, and eventually learned how to edit the videos. Now I get to follow my passion for creating content for non-profit and educational organizations so my advice to students is simple: pay attention to what excites you and what you are naturally good at.

Phellix is sitting in between various professional lighting and video equipment.