Smarty Pants: Meet Shreejita Satpathy, W.T. Clarke High School's salutatorian who is heading to Carnegie Mellon

W.T. Clarke High School Salutatorian Shreejita Satpathy wasn’t afraid to try new things to see what piqued her interest. She was a member of numerous honor societies and clubs, holding a board position for many of them, which she said allowed her to see what she was interested in.

“I think the reason I joined everything was because I just have a lot of interests in general, and I kind of want to try everything,” Satpathy, 17, said. “I have this joke with my friends that I’ve been in almost every club here at least once even if it was just the first meeting because I wanted to see if I liked it. And then, if I do like it, I do pursue it for a while.”

Satpathy made her way through the East Meadow School District attending Meadowbrook Elementary School — after spending her first couple elementary school years in the Carle Place School District — and then onto Clarke Middle School.

She’s finishing out her high school career in the same building as middle school as second in her class with a weighted grade point average of 109.16.

She will head to Pittsburgh come fall to attend Carnegie Mellon University where she will be majoring in computer science.

“I’ve been interested in comp sci for a while, ever since the beginning of high school really,” Satpathy said. “I took a course on it and it really sparked my interest especially through hackathons and things like that, that I’ve done starting from eighth grade.”

The hackathons she participated in were through New York Institute of Technology in Old Westbury. There, she learned that she not only wants to pursue computer science, but that she also wants to work with people.

“It was a small team and I didn’t know anyone there beforehand,” she said. “When I got to it, and started working with everyone, it was really, really interesting to me to work with these strangers, quickly become friends with them, and then have this goal that we had to reach in 24 hours.”

She’s not too sure what she wants to do in terms of a dream job, but she thinks she wants to work for a tech giant such as Google.

“Not only to be a programmer, but also work with a lot of people, hopefully in some kind of leadership position,” she said. “I really like trying to help people find their skill sets and seeing how they work together with other people.”

In school, Satpathy said that she always tried to take the highest level of the courses that interested her the most, because it helped keep her motivated.

“My parents never forced me to do anything, they’re so supportive and encouraging,” she said. “Their whole take on school is basically do what you like, but things that you do like, make sure you do them diligently.”

Shreejita’s mother, Suchi Satpathy, said that she loved seeing her daughter try different activities to find what she wanted to do.

“She always wanted to try out every single thing” Suchi said. “We told her go for everything, try out everything, don’t just limit yourself or your learning. That’s why I’m proud of her.”

She’s a member of the National, math, social studies, and business and technology honor societies, and is president of the science and French honor societies.

She’s co-president for the schools’ Quiz Bowl club, co-president of the school’s DECA chapter, president of the Science Olympiads, a member of Key Club, and was captain for both of her Varsity Tennis and Varsity Badminton teams.

Outside of school, she participated in a science honors program at Columbia University where she could take courses like bio engineering, organic chemistry and others that weren’t offered at Clarke. She was also a National Merit finalist.

Sujit Satpathy, Shreejita’s father, said that seeing her accomplishments has made him proud. He mentioned a spelling bee competition that she competed in, and a math competition in second or third grade where she took home a first place prize.

“From childhood she’s always been good,” Sujit said. “We expect she’s going to do something great.”

For college, Shreejita said that she is looking forward to seeing what opportunities the new area, campus, and people have to offer.

“Job opportunities, internship opportunities, but also just the opportunity to meet a lot of new people with different varied interests from around the world and just getting to know a lot of different people,” she said. “I’m just excited to see what all the new changes are going to be and who I’m going to be, what I’m going to do, how my life is going to change, and just where I’m going go from there.”