![“[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)
CareerConnect hosted a workshop to help students prepare for final exams with a panel consisting of seniors Ramit Goyal, Ella Lan and Fiona Yan in the Innovation Center during Thursday’s long lunch.
The seniors gave a presentation to an audience of mostly frosh about studying practices, useful mindsets and personal experiences. Fiona emphasized the importance of creating a study plan prioritizing certain subjects and topics based on current grades and areas of weakness. She advised students to divide their studying into separate steps: identifying knowledge gaps, relearning concepts they completely forgot using class notes and office hours and reviewing material by explaining concepts to others and doing practice problems.
Drawing from personal experience, Ella focused on specific studying resources, including creating study guides, utilizing College Board resources and writing practice tests. She also noted the importance of going to office hours and finding a friend to study with.
“We’re all at a stage, even for the frosh, that we know which friends we can study with and which friends we just aren’t going to be productive with,” Ella said during the presentation. “But being able to have somebody to study with, whether it be your teacher or your classmate, is just very helpful to be able to bounce ideas and get quick answers.”
Ramit focused on methods to increase studying productivity, explaining helpful skills like the Pomodoro technique, which breaks work into 25 or 50-minute intervals separated by short breaks, and square breathing, a deep breathing technique to reduce stress. He further expanded on this point by explaining the importance of students’ mindset, emphasizing sleep and self-care.
“If you sleep less than five hours, you feel fine,” Ramit said in the presentation. “I would say that that’s actually a facade, because you subconsciously forget a lot of things that you studied, and you don’t even remember the things you’ve forgotten. That’s why you are under the impression that you’re fine, but in reality, there’s a lot of information that you may have forgotten if you don’t get the full eight hours of sleep.”
At the end of the presentation, students asked for study tips for specific courses as well as advice for managing studying time on top of other activities and homework, and seniors gave answers based on their personal experiences.
“Hearing from trustworthy seniors was informative, especially since they advised us on past courses they took,” attendee Cynthia Wang (9) said. “It was really helpful because they informed us how to study and organize our study techniques for different classes while giving out direct advice for classes like Physics and English upon questioning.”
CareerConnect holds a finals preparation workshop with a panel of seniors every year to allow underclassmen to gain insight from more experienced students. Officers reached out to a list of potential seniors willing to speak as panelists and advertised the event in classes and school meeting.
“For CareerConnect, the main things that we do are first, help students develop career paths and different opportunities, and second, help student life improve in general,” CareerConnect director Jia Jia Jiang (11) said. “This event was more in the second category, in that we just wanted to educate some people who felt confused or didn’t know how to study for finals.”
CareerConnect holds workshops and field trips to give students guidance into different career paths. The finals workshop is also important to CareerConnect’s overall mission of providing students with advice and information that will enable them to be more successful in both their careers and in their academic studies.
“It’s a little bit outside of our traditional mission of giving students professionalism, skills and insights into career paths, but it’s something that is very relevant and appropriate to our students and does have some sort of career impact as well,” Business and Entrepreneurship Teacher and CareerConnect advisor Michael Acheatel said. “ [CareerConnect] is really just about providing information that is going to be relevant to the students at this time in their life.”
![LALC Vice President of External Affairs Raeanne Li (11) explains the International Phonetic Alphabet to attendees. "We decided to have more fun topics this year instead of just talking about the same things every year so our older members can also [enjoy],” Raeanne said.](https://harkeraquila.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/DSC_4627-1200x795.jpg)
