A February snowstorm in New York forced the reimaging of this year's Wall Street 101 experience, an annual daylong immersion into careers in finance for Gilman Upper Schoolers. So on a lovely spring day in April, 17 students descended on Baltimore's Harbor Point for a look inside Constellation Energy and then headed over to Fells Point for a visit at Brown Advisory.

At Constellation Energy, David Dardis P'27, executive vice President, chief legal and policy officer, and his colleague Adam Boyd, vice president, Portfolio Management, gave the students a history of commodities trading and futures market, a high-level view into energy generation and delivery, and a laundry list of variables that can affect the price of electricity. Then the professionals walked the students through the trading floor, where all of the company's subject matter experts — including a team of in-house meteorologists — share and react to the most recent market news.

At Brown Advisory, Garrett Paglia '11, an associate at the firm, had organized a panel discussion with a number of Gilman alumni. Joining Garrett were Geoff Carey '80, partner and senior portfolio strategist; Mike Poggi '99, partner and portfolio manager; and Christian Hall '09, RFP team lead - US Institutional. After describing, at a high level, what the firm does, their individual journeys until working at Brown, and the types of personal and professional skills it takes to thrive there, the group answered questions from the students. The conversation covered topics such as the importance of developing your people skills to succeed in finance careers; the need to be able to think critically even as technologies like AI continue to grow in prominence; the valuable role that internships can play for college juniors and seniors in job searches; the thought process behind of some of Brown's most successful investment strategies; the essential role that a long-term focus can play in investing; and the ever-important role that reading books — actual books — can play in a person's mental health and well-being.

The bus ride home was buzzing with great questions and debates about tariffs, market fluctuations, job/internship opportunities, and so forth. It was a day that will resonate with these students for quite some time.

That evening one parent commented, "[My son] really enjoyed that trip. He came home with a spark in his eye asking his dad all kinds of questions. Thank you for hosting this field trip. It was a big success."