You can often see Samantha Yanovsky (12) striding along, a bright smile lighting up her face, saying “hi” to people as she passes them with warmth and confidence. Her wavy brown hair floats on her magenta and orange striped sweater. Leather boots leading her forwards, her legs, the propellers of each firm step, are clad with cozy black leggings. Her optimistic personality stems from a motto she’s held ever since she was little.

When she was young, during parent-teacher conferences, teachers would often praise her energy and her smile. Growing up, she always used to smile because of her teacher’s words, and she wanted to make sure that she lived up to that standard. Also, her mother would always suggest her to smile, even when Samantha was sad because she said it would make her happier for scientific reasons.

“I think that people should smile more, and they always don’t think it’s important, but it actually makes you happier. It also makes people around you happier,” Samantha said.

While Samantha aims to help others stay happy, the community around her has also helped Samantha to develop her upbeat personality in return.

“[Harker] is just a part of who I am,” Samantha said. “It’s taught me the importance of having a kind of tight family. There’s always someone who I can rely on, and so that might be a reason why I’m so energetic. It’s like I know everybody, and it’s a safe place for me.”

At Harker, she also developed one of her main hobbies: water polo. Because her older brother and sister both played the sport, she had wanted to follow in their footsteps. She started playing water polo for school in sixth grade and has enjoyed it ever since.

She said, “It’s very competitive, which is interesting, and it’s a team sport, which I really like because it’s very important that everyone relies on everybody else and it’s not just about one person. That’s a really important skill for the future, and one of the reasons I do water polo is to gain that skill.”

Samantha had always been a normal field player since middle school, but in her sophomore year, the main goalie of the Harker girls team graduated, causing her coach to ask her to become a goalie. She said that it was difficult at first, but after joining a club and toiling over the summer, she improved. In her junior year, she became the main goalie until another goalie joined the team. Her coach said to her that she would be more valuable to the team in the field and asked her to become a starter, which is the position she plays now.

“As a goalie, I really learned the importance of the team and communication because I watched everybody else. In water polo, it’s really hard to see what’s going on around you, but I was able to tell people like ‘that person’s open’ and communicate. During 11th and 12th grade, I was able to implement that and talk more with the team as a player,” Samantha said.

The skills such as balancing her life and the valuable knowledge she has learned through water polo also helps her to maintain strong relationships with her friends.

“She’s someone who really has confidence in herself, someone who really believes in what she does and pushes forwards,” said Enya Lu (12), one of her close friends who she met in freshman year. “She’s an aspiration to and the kind of person I want to be and what kind of lifestyle I want because she really knows how to balance reality and her dreams and having fun.”

Samantha’s warm personality allows her to comfort others. Another one of her close friends, Ihita Mandal (12) said, “She’s always there for me. She can always tell when I’m feeling down about something.”

Her empathy also facilitates another one of her hobbies: teaching. She has taught at East West Music and Dance for two years, the Harker Lower School Summer Camp for two years and Starbright, a preschool and kindergarten, for one summer.

“Teaching the students and watching them is really rewarding and nice. I’ve had a teacher who really impacted my life, so I kinda want to give back and impact others because this teacher changed my life for good,” she said.

One important value Samantha holds close to her heart is being unique. She said that when she was younger, she used to always pick her piece of construction paper last because she didn’t want to have the same color paper as anyone else.

“First of all, I didn’t want that color to feel left out. Second, I didn’t want to follow the crowd because my project would look like everyone else’s, and I wanted to stand out,” Samantha said jokingly. “Now that I’ve grown up, I don’t purposely try to be unique like that anymore, but I want to be unique and memorable.”

Something unique and seemingly random hobby of Samantha’s is driving. After she got her license in tenth grade, she began to enjoy driving.

“I learned how to drive manual as a choice, and since then, it’s become a sort of hobby of mine. I like going on drives and exploring different places,” she said.

She recalled a recent drive she did with her siblings. They took Highway 1 to Highway 9, which traces along the coast. Samantha said that they enjoyed the scenery and had a good time together.

Her investment in her relationships with others impacts others around her.

“She really cares about all of her friends and her relationships with them. She always makes an effort to go to all my performances, even though some of my friends don’t always do that, and she places a lot of importance on those kinds of things,” said her close friend Hannah Lak (12).