As a middle schooler, Vijay Bharadwaj (12) was content: content in his friendships, his interests, his community. He had built himself a home of supportive people, a safety net that he could lean on in times of distress.

But in ninth grade, he faced an abrupt move from Challenger School to Harker, where he grappled with finding his place among new people and environments. Leaving behind the people he had known and depended on had quickly and painfully ripped off a layer of his security.

“Freshman year, for me, it was super hard. I came from Challenger, and there were, like, 60 kids in my grade,” Vijay said. “I knew pretty much everybody there. I come to Harker, and I know nobody. I didn’t know how to make friends, to feel at home at Harker the way I felt at home there.”

The first step that Vijay took to feel comfortable at Harker, and the idea that has become a central part of his life, might seem counterintuitive. Rather than trying immediately to make new friends and find a group to feel secure, he decided to learn to be alone.

“Being okay with being alone is such a big deal because in middle school, I was always with my friends. I don’t think I could ever stand a time when I wasn’t with my friends,” Vijay said. “In high school, probably during my freshman and sophomore years, I began to realize that it’s okay to be alone. Being alone is a good time to reflect more on yourself and do some more thinking about the person you want to be. Being comfortable with being alone was a huge step in finding a home at Harker, because, you know, when I was okay with being alone, I knew how I could be at Harker.”

And learning to be alone was a process. Vijay not only had to be comfortable without the presence and security of friends, but he also had to stop thinking about others’ judgement. And at first, it bothered him that other people could see that he was alone and were likely pitying him or wondering why.

“I guess it was kind of like a fear,” Vijay said. “Like, ‘Oh no, I’m alone. I don’t have anyone to walk with. People are going to judge me, it’ll look like I don’t have friends — right? But I completely got over that in freshman and sophomore year. That was a huge step for me.”

Taking a gradual approach to assimilating into the Harker community, Vijay found that learning to be alone wasn’t just a first-month, new-kid survival tactic. Rather, it gave him an opportunity to think and reflect on his own life.

Vijay had always loved programming in a way that was purely motivated by passion and interest. There’s a palpable sense of pride in his voice when he speaks about coding little games just for the fun of it or reprogramming robots in his free time. However, solitude forced him to really reflect on whether coding could really be his life’s work.

“I’ve kind of thought of the person I want to be, starting with what I want to do after college. I loved computer science so much, but did I want to do that for the rest of my life? What am I actually interested in, and what do I want to?” Vijay said.

Although Vijay hasn’t found his exact path yet, thinking about it has showed him the type of life he wants to lead — and the type he absolutely doesn’t.

“I want to be an interesting person,” he said. “If I took up [a job], what if I was just stuck in a cubicle, working away, just like every other robot in that office? When I was doing all this reflection, I was thinking, ‘That’s not a life I want to live,’ being like everyone else, being a cookie-cutter person. I want to make my life interesting for myself and interesting for other people.”

Vijay takes this goal very seriously — not only has he begun to seriously consider and reconsider his life’s plans, but he also strives to live his version of the “interesting life” by caring for others in his everyday actions.

“I’m almost too helpful to people. And sure, you can be philanthropic and do community service, but the kind of help I’m thinking of is everyday help,” Vijay said. “Sometimes, when I ask for help, I get turned away, but I could never do that. No matter what. No matter what they tell me, all of a sudden, I feel morally bound to help them to the best of my ability. I’m still struggling to see if that’s a bad thing — does it make me weak? Is that bad? I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

Having overcome one of his biggest fears during high school, Vijay stands at the brink of some difficult and possibly life-changing questions. But when he lays out his ideas for how to live the rest of his life in broad brushstrokes, he stays true to his values.

“Living a life meeting other people makes it interesting. Hearing what other people and hearing their stories is the best. Traveling is cool and all, but it doesn’t get me as excited as meeting someone who wants to meet you, having a conversation with them,” Vijay said. “I feel like that’s so interesting, and that’s how I live an interesting life. I don’t have to go out with friends — I can just talk to new people, meet with new people, share my experiences.”