USC student participates in forensic science program in D.C.

Earlier this summer, Halle Hewitt, a junior at Upper St. Clair High School, was selected to participate in a forensic science camp at American University.
Still to this day, she doesn’t know how she got it. One of her teachers at Upper St. Clair recommended her for the program, but she still doesn’t know which teacher recommended her.
Nevertheless, she’s glad she was recommended for it and her application was accepted, because it confirmed to her that she wants to pursue forensic science as a career.
“(Forensic science) has always been really fascinating to me,” she said. “Now that I finally had a chance to learn about it, I thought I would take the opportunity.”
Like many, Hewitt became captivated with forensic science through television. Her favorite show, “Bones,” which focuses on forensic anthropology – her favorite aspect of the trip.
At the nine-day National Student Leadership Conference in late July, dozens of students, including Hewitt, lived on campus, took classes and participated in leadership conferences.
NSLC is a nationwide organization for high school students. It hosts 21 different programs, including forensic science, architecture, business and many others, at 12 different colleges in the United States, such as UC Berkeley, Northwestern, Yale and Harvard. The programs offer hands-on simulations, leadership training, guest speakers, tours and the experience of life on a college campus.
“It gave me a taste of what college would be like,” Hewitt said. “We stayed in the dorms, we had roommates. I liked that experience and we really got to know the people on our floors.”
Hewitt took classes on several forensic science topics, including blood spatter, forensic psychology and her favorite, anthropology.
“I think it’s really cool how you can look at the bones and determine all these things from them, and it was cool that I was able to do that after the class,” she said.
Hewitt’s favorite trip was when the group visited the FBI Academy at Quantico. They toured a forensic lab and were taught lessons on how to clear a room on a police raid and how to break down a door with a battering ram.
At the end of the NSLC program, Hewitt and the other students completed a final project to test the skills they had learned through the previous week. They teamed up to solve a fake murder, including working a mock crime scene, collecting evidence and testifying in a courtroom.
Hewitt’s favorite part of NSLC, though, were the friends she made on the trip.
“I met people from all around the country,” she said.
Two of her closest friends from NSLC are from California and Las Vegas, and they have kept in contact since the program ended.
“Personally I just really loved meeting all these new people who had the same interests as me,” Hewitt said. “It made me realize that (Upper St. Clair) isn’t all there is in the world. It was also really interesting to just learn all these new things.”