Each year, most Fieldston Form V students remain in the beloved Bronx campus. However, a handful of juniors journey to a set of affiliated programs to spend a semester engaging in political conversations with our nation’s leaders, learning farm skills in Vermont or exploring the hidden gems of New York City.
Fieldston partners with five semester-away programs: the School for Ethics and Global Leadership (SEGL), which has campuses in Washington D.C., London, England and Johannesburg, South Africa; the Island School in Eleuthera, the Bahamas; the Mountain School in Vershire, Vermont; High Mountain Institute (HMI) in Leadville, Colorado; and Chewonki in Wiscasset, Maine. Each school offers a different and enriching learning experience.
Saskia Sommer (Form V) currently attends SEGL in Washington D.C. and says it is “the singular best experience of [her] life.” At SEGL, students learn ethical and critical thinking skills and meet political leaders to make informed decisions about global issues. “Here, we learn from leaders shaping the world while becoming said leaders ourselves and bonding through Capitol jaunts, karaoke sessions and late-night talks,” said Sommer.
Sarah Egan (Form VI) attended HMI, a wilderness exploration program nestled in the mountains of Colorado. Egan chose the program for a break from the monotonous high school routine. “By junior year, I was tired of high school and just seeing the same people every day, so I wanted to try something new,” said Egan.
“It’s so much more worth it to have a new experience, and it really helps you be confident being independent from your family,” she shared.
At The Mountain School, participants live, learn and work on a farm while being conscious of the environmental impact of everyday decisions. Ella Rahav (Form IV), who hopes to attend the Mountain School, said she chose to apply to a semester away program to “broaden [her] perspective.”
Fieldston, she said, “is so heavily based on being progressive and having diversity of thought and being a diverse community that celebrates all different perspectives.” Rahav wants to spend a semester away “to come back and take these experiences [at a] semester away program and apply them to make our community a more rich and diverse place.”
Rahav specifically chose the Mountain School because she was interested in “the idea of belonging to this community where you are challenged by your peers, and you’re all engaging in deeply critical thinking and you’re all also working on a farm to sustain each other, so you’re all working for a shared goal that benefits more than yourself.”
Chewonki, a semester program located on the coast of Maine, encompasses over 400 acres to explore and learn about the surrounding ecosystem. Amelia Citron (Form VI) attended the program last year, and said she “wanted to [apply] since [she] knew what it was in elementary school.”
“The whole curriculum is based around environmental studies,” said Citron. “So every single class, you’re doing trigonometry by measuring trees, and you’re reading eco-literature.”
Students who attend The Island School, a program situated on the beautiful Bahamian island of Eleuthera, learn ecology and marine biology by studying the natural environment around them. “I was always interested in marine biology and I love fishing, I like surfing, so the Island School appealed to me,” said Alex Hee (Form VI), who attended the Island School last year.
“I think it’s something for people who like to take advantage of every opportunity, whether it’s jumping off a dock, even though you have clothes on,” said Hee. “It’s for people who like to explore and like to experiment and try new things.”
In addition to the several external semester away programs, Fieldston offers an in-house semester program called City Semester. According to the program’s website, City Semester is “an interdisciplinary, experiential semester program that starts from the very simple premise that New York City is our classroom.”
“Whether in English or math class, I am a student that always found myself asking ‘why?’ in the classroom,” said Caitlin Neidow (Form VI), who took City Semester during the fall of her junior year. “In City Sem, I was always able to answer that question for myself.”
In City Semester, students spend either the spring or fall semester learning about New York City and its many facets. In addition to typical classes, the program incorporates off-campus trips to take learning outside the classroom. “We go on about two trips, maybe three sometimes, a week,” said Jeein Chung (Form V), who recently finished City Semester this fall.
“It’s super fun how they incorporate science and maths and different subjects into the trips that you do, making it really fun in a way that you can digest it and understand what you’re learning rather than just sitting in a classroom and looking at a board or having someone lecture to you,” shared Chung.
Fellow City Semester alum Juliet Lipman (Form V) enjoyed the program’s flexibility and responsiveness. “I like that the curriculum is based off of the students so it’s more engaging for you,” she said.
Lipman said her reasoning for applying to City Semester stemmed from her desire to learn more about New York City. “I really wanted to do it because I’m from Westchester, so I actually don’t know a lot of the city, and I was really excited to explore it,” she shared.
For any freshman or sophomores considering applying to a semester away program, Lipman says simply, “Do it.”
Chung added, “A lot of people have different concerns about falling behind in classes or not being able to have that typical learning experience that they’re used to. But I feel like because we went in with such open minds, it really helped us to take everything in rather than just being worried about little things.”
“You should 100% at least apply for it,” said Chung.
