Devin Lewtan ’16

Alumni Voices

Devin Lewtan ’16

Beaver Reflections:
I graduated from Beaver in 2016 after transferring there for my sophomore year. I feel like Beaver is progressive and unique in their teaching styles, which is something I embraced and wanted in college. I also really enjoyed NuVu and I’m so glad Beaver has a partnership with them — It was a defining part for me. I really enjoyed the project-based style at both NuVu and Beaver. I always liked design so it was really cool for me to get to do that. I worked on a project that was really exciting. We went to Mexico to field test it, we won a design competition for it. That kind of pointed me in the direction that I ended up in my career

What is #happeningnow in your life:
I go to NYU but I’m in Gallatin, which is a school of individual study. I’ve been creating my own major. I went in interested in design, interested in tech. Over the years I shifted it to be about language and tech. I did natural
language processing. I was working at a startup that was a conversational bot and I created this specific focus on the power of conversation. I hosted a speed learning series at NYU where people would teach each other things that they learned in class in a story you had to tell a bunch of different people. The point was to learn a bunch of different things from new people and also learn how to cut down your story and actually understand what you’re learning. I was involved with women in computing and I ran mentorships for girls. I interned at startups and, this is funny, I did a thing called Rough Draft Ventures the past couple years. I’m a student venture capitalist. I invest in student founders and this is out of a venture capital firm called General Catalyst. The founding partner of General Catalyst is Joel Cutler, who is on the Board of Beaver. Recently, because of Covid, my offer was rescinded at a company I really liked. I’ve been interning there for a while and they laid off 20 of their team and just couldn’t bring me on. I found another team I really like and I started two weeks ago. I’m a planner and I think a lot of plans out in my head and the one that i was really envisioning was swept out from under me and I realized that there are moments that your life just does a pivot and it’s still going to be okay. You can’t necessarily really have that 10-year plan.

“You do not figure out what you want to do because you know. You figure it out because you find what you do not like. Finding things that do not pique your interest helps narrow down the focus to find your true passion.”

– Devin Lewtan ’16

Advice to Beaver students:
Be curious. When you lean into your curiosity in any form, you will be smarter and will get more answers because you will ask questions. Whenever something interests you, really dive into it and ask questions because you will be able to continue broadening your horizons.

Beaver Country Day School admits qualified students of any race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, creed, handicap status, national origin or ethnicity to all the rights, privileges, programs and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, religion, creed, handicap status, national origin or ethinicity in the administration of its educational, admission, financial aid, athletic or other school-administered programs or policies.