June 2026: The Sci-Tech Alumni Newsletter

Our Alum of the Month for this issue is Benjy Levine! Benjy is a former camper who began attending Sci-Tech in 2018, where he found a passion for engineering while in the Robotics workshop. He also explored the Game Design and Cryptology workshops, which he used as an opportunity to explore new areas that were adjacent to what he was interested in learning about. Benjy embodies zerizut, a zest for life, especially when it comes to learning, though his favorite parts of camp were the people. Some of his fondest memories of his chugim were not of whatever activity he was participating in, but of gaming the selection system so he could be with his friends. “It mattered less what I was doing, and more about who I was doing it with.”

Benjy lived in the Baer dorm for three years, and his favorite parts of the schedule were Menucha and shower hour — any time when he was able to be with his friends in “that bit of unstructured time that was very much mandatory.” Benjy said these times were “a great spot where I found people in” and was able to make true deep connections. During these unstructured times, Benjy loved to come up with, in his words, “dumb” games with his friends when they had nothing else to do — there was “no shame in coming up with something that was definitely stupid.”

Benjy’s favorite memory from camp was the Teva night song circle in his 10th grade year and 6th year at camp. Looking around at everyone he had grown up with, despite only knowing them for two weeks out of the year, Benjy was struck by the bittersweetness of the moment. Immediately following the end of the summer that year, Benjy went to Newburyport and bought a YEAT shirt — then immediately got YEAT shirts for all of his friends and mailed them, just so they could all be in on a joke that makes “absolutely no sense.” Benjy still keeps in touch with those friends today.

Benjy still uses the skills he learned at Sci-Tech in the rest of his life. In 2024, he worked at a healthtech startup called Inspiren; in the same summer, he built a website for his grandfather’s watercolors called Paintings for a Purpose. Now, he is moving from one community of inventors to another, as he will be attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the fall. While he was visiting MIT, Benjy was reminded of camp, and believes he found a community that was similarly “silly, but fun,” with similar passions. For him, it’s “like Sci-Tech, but a little bigger (and perhaps more expensive),” but there’s the same focus and willingness to have fun while still working hard. As we look back at 13 years of camp, it is heartening to hear about Benjy’s experience at Sci-Tech, and how it has affected his life’s journey. You can get in touch with Benjy by checking out his website at https://www.benjamin-levine.com/.