![“I wasn't discouraged by some of the obstacles we faced. I learned a lot from the leadership. I found that different people need different ways of receiving feedback — you can't [just] tell them to do something and expect the best. [Some] people needed more incentive. A large part of my role was to figure out what worked for everyone and to figure out how to lead all these separate individuals as a team,” Suhana Bhandare (’26) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/SuhanaBhandare_JasmineHansra-1-1200x798.jpg)
![“This is actually from Randy Pausch Randy P. Brick: ‘Walls are there for a reason. You have to show how much you want to overcome them.’ You have to show how much you want something. That's what I've always been able to do with tennis, Link Crew and getting that internship [with Kushy Baby]. It’s important pushing through that — getting around that brick wall, climbing over it or clawing through it,” Yash Sachdeva (’26) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/YashSachdeva_RamBatchu-copy-1200x1002.jpg)
![“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasn't been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but I've had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. There's so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesn't exist, you can build it yourself," Ishaan Parate said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/DSC_8149-900x604.jpg)
![“When I came into high school, I was ready to be a follower. But DECA was a game changer for me. It helped me overcome my fear of public speaking, and it's played such a major role in who I've become today. To be able to successfully lead a chapter of 150 students, an officer team and be one of the upperclassmen I once really admired is something I'm [really] proud of,” Anvitha Tummala ('21) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/Screen-Shot-2021-07-25-at-9.50.05-AM-900x594.png)
![“I think getting up in the morning and having a sense of purpose [is exciting]. I think without a certain amount of drive, life is kind of obsolete and mundane, and I think having that every single day is what makes each day unique and kind of makes life exciting,” Neymika Jain (12) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Screen-Shot-2017-06-03-at-4.54.16-PM.png)
![“My slogan is ‘slow feet, don’t eat, and I’m hungry.’ You need to run fast to get where you are–you aren't going to get those championships if you aren't fast,” Angel Cervantes (12) said. “I want to do well in school on my tests and in track and win championships for my team. I live by that, [and] I can do that anywhere: in the classroom or on the field.”](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/DSC5146-900x601.jpg)
![“[Volleyball has] taught me how to fall correctly, and another thing it taught is that you don’t have to be the best at something to be good at it. If you just hit the ball in a smart way, then it still scores points and you’re good at it. You could be a background player and still make a much bigger impact on the team than you would think,” Anya Gert (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AnnaGert_JinTuan_HoHPhotoEdited-600x900.jpeg)
![“I'm not nearly there yet, but [my confidence has] definitely been getting better since I was pretty shy and timid coming into Harker my freshman year. I know that there's a lot of people that are really confident in what they do, and I really admire them. Everyone's so driven and that has really pushed me to kind of try to find my own place in high school and be more confident,” Alyssa Huang (’20) said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/AlyssaHuang_EmilyChen_HoHPhoto-900x749.jpeg)
Students participate in Invitational Linguistics Olympiad
Provided by Dr. Shaun Jahshan
Qualifiers participate in the NACLO invitational round, held on March 9.
March 10, 2017
Nine upper school students participated in the invitational round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) in Main yesterday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The students, Kai-Siang Ang (12), Andrew Rule (12), David Zhu (12), Swapnil Garg (11), Joanna Lin (11), Alexandra Michael (11), Rajiv Movva (11), Rose Guan (10) and Grace Huang (9), represented more than five percent of the 156 U.S. students and 30 percent of the 26 Californian students who qualified. Upper school ethics and Mandarin teacher Dr. Shaun Jahshan proctored the exam.
Participants who scored above a certain threshold on the open round of the NACLO on Jan. 26, which was open to all high school students in North America, could participate in the invitational round yesterday. Language & Linguistics Club held practice sessions for both olympiads at club meetings.
“I thought the invitational round was pretty hard compared to the open round,” Swapnil said. “There’re more problems, and the open round was pretty easy, but this round, all the problems were hard.”
NACLO problems can include translating sentences or conjugating words from other languages, interpreting different writing systems or number systems from English and applying logic to English-language problems. No knowledge of the languages involved is necessary to solve the problems.
The next step in this progression of competitions is the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL), at which high-scoring invitational round participants will represent their home countries, in Dublin from July 31 to Aug. 4. Past upper school students who participated in the IOL include Erik Andersen (’13) in 2011, 2012 and 2013 and Anand Natarajan (’09) in 2008 and 2009, both of whom were part of teams representing the U.S.
Both linguistics olympiads have been held annually, the IOL since 2003 and the NACLO since 2007.
