Brandon Crenshaw
12th Grade Student, Freire Wilmington
2025 Experienceship Participant, Buccini Pollin Group
On his first day at Buccini Pollin Group, a real estate development firm in Wilmington, Brandon Crenshaw did something most interns don’t. He approached the executives, shook hands, and asked for their business cards. “Networking was something I realized I could take advantage of right away,” he says.
Brandon, a student at Freire Charter School Wilmington, spent two weeks in summer 2025 in the school’s Experienceship Program, a selective internship initiative designed to give students a real-world taste of professional life. For Brandon, it was less a taste and more a revelation. BPG, with its array of in-house departments—construction, marketing, leasing, and close-out—operated like a living case study in how ideas become blueprints, and blueprints become buildings. “They’re always thinking big,” he said. “But even when they think big, they push themselves to think bigger.”
Over the course of his rotation, Brandon sampled the company’s many moving parts. One standout assignment involved pricing how much it would cost to lease and fully furnish different spaces—studios, one-bedrooms, offices—calculating everything down to the square foot. It was the kind of detailed, data-driven work that demanded precision and imagination.
What surprised Brandon most wasn’t the math; it was the mindset. At BPG, collaboration meant accountability. “You can’t just focus on your part and ignore the rest,” he said. “Everyone has to take ownership, so the final project turns out the way it should. The maturity level and depth of communication stood out to me. At BPG, people asked in-depth questions and explained things in multiple ways to make sure everyone understood. There was a lot of openness and willingness to help each other.”
The office, he said, felt like where he was “supposed to be,” a rare statement from a teenager, made without irony or self-consciousness. “It felt good. I felt important, like I was doing something right for my future and investing in myself while others were also investing in me.”
The experience not only gave him a LinkedIn profile and a sense of direction, but it also reshaped his idea of what success feels like. It’s not a certificate or a title, but the quiet confidence of walking into a room and knowing you belong there.
His advice for the next wave of students entering the program is simple: “Research the company before you start, and prepare questions. You never know who you’ll meet or what you could learn from them; they’re always willing to give if you’re willing to ask.”
In the end, that may be Brandon’s most important takeaway. The future doesn’t always arrive through grand gestures or bold declarations. It often begins with a handshake, a question, and the quiet confidence to ask for a business card.