student Life

In 2018, Olivia S. and Grace D. founded an organization dedicated to combatting hygiene poverty in New York City. In this interview, these student leaders share what they have learned from running an organization and describe how Hewitt has inspired and supported them along the way.

At Life After Hewitt: Careers in Finance, four Hewitt alumnae joined current students and our extended school community for a panel discussion about how Hewitt inspired them to pursue their professional passions with purpose and confidence.

After developing their knowledge of health, fitness, nutrition, and sports, middle school students collaborated on self-directed, student-led projects to share sport-specific training exercises as well as the physical and psychological benefits of an active lifestyle. 

As members of the play production team, we learned about theater by doing the actual work of producing a play. Through hands-on and student-led learning, we explored the specialized skills that go into planning a production while taking charge, solving problems, and working with our peers to achieve our goals. 

At Hewitt, our mission—to inspire girls and young women to become game changers and ethical leaders who forge an equitable, sustainable, and joyous future—informs our commitment to designing learning experiences that reflect the complexity of the world in which we live.

The Hewitt community marked the final weeks of the 2020-2021 school year with several joyful celebrations, including Field Day in Central Park, a visit from the Mister Softee ice cream truck, and Commencement Exercises for the Class of 2021.

I am forever grateful for my 13 years at Hewitt. I am grateful for the lifelong relationships I have nurtured here, the lessons learned, the best successes, and the greatest failures. I am grateful to all of you — my brilliant teachers and friends, our community, and our families — for shaping me into the young woman I am proud to be today. 

Over this past year, it struck me that there is not all that big a difference between you, me, and the superheroes we see in movies. True, we cannot snap our fingers and expect half the universe to evaporate to dust, but there is a tremendous amount that we can do both as individuals and even more so as a community to improve the world, one small action at a time. 

Our work as News Decoder Student Ambassadors has been one of the most significant extracurriculars of our high school careers. It has enabled us to engage with people from different areas of the world on broad, real-world topics that affect our immediate and extended community.

By incorporating social-emotional learning standards into English courses, teachers are building a classroom culture that prepares students to apply their developing emotional intelligence to the academic, interpersonal, and, eventually, professional areas of their lives.