The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila

“Playing tuba in orchestra is not always the most rewarding experience. Most of the time I sit in the back and do my homework or sleep because I have that much rest, Meghana Karinthi (12) said. You’re definitely not the most featured person in the group. At the same time, when I see the group do well and I know that I took a part in that, it gives me a lot more satisfaction than me having a whole bunch of solos.”

Humans of Harker: Meghana Karinthi makes the difference behind the scenes

by Nina Gee, Reporter May 20, 2018

Meghana Karinthi (12) is a 5-foot girl playing a 4-foot tuba. She also happens to play one of the most aggressive positions in water polo, a fact that surprises people to no end and frustrates Meghana...

Sick started as just like a common saying, like oh, thats sick, Matthew Kennedy (12) said. You know, common teen slang. Then I wrote it on my knuckles cause I thought it was edgy and thought it looked good. Fast forward, someone was telling a story which I didnt care about, and I said, sick, dude, and gave him a fist pound. He thought it was funny, so I started doing it more often. Now its a part of my life.

Humans of Harker: Matthew Kennedy builds character

by Jin Tuan, Reporter May 19, 2018

Walking down school hallways with a purposeful stride and a hand in his green sports hoodie pocket, Matthew “Matt” Kennedy (12) is simultaneously extroverted and introspective. “I’m in my head...

“[My mom would] take me to different places; she’d take me to a lot of the big cities to where a lot of the fashion designer brands came from, Alan Jiang (12) said. She would spend hours and hours there — I used to be really mad, because she doesn’t know how to speak English, and we’d stay in the store for four-five hours just to pick one item that she really liked and I had to translate for her, so that’s why I was exposed to a lot of the stuff. Back then, I really hated it — I was really mad at my mom. But afterwards, I was kind of inspired by it.”

Humans of Harker Video: Alan Jiang weaves together family and fashion

May 18, 2018

This is the fourth installment of the Humans of Harker 2018 video series. Through this project, the Harker journalism program aims to tell the story of the senior class, one profile at a time. Videography:...

“Theres one quote that I remember from when I was four years old that my dad told me, probably after I threw macaroni on the carpet or something: ‘because youre so young, youre still looking for the boundaries, and thats okay,’” Dolan Dworak (12) said. “You can always look for them. I guess my forte has always been going to the edge of the cliff but never really jumping off. Its very relieving to wake up and do exactly what you say youre going to do and be the exact person that you envision yourself to be.”

Humans of Harker: Dolan Dworak subverts expectations

by Zachary Hoffman, Reporter May 14, 2018

“It's actually kind of troubling how a lot of the most important things have been just impulsive and horribly unplanned,” Dolan Dworak (12) said of his high school career. He sat in the middle of...

“Even if I don’t have advice to give them, I listen to them,” Richa Bhattacharya (12) said. “My friend went through a really dark point of her life in the past, and she decided to trust me and talk to me, and I respect that and I honor that, and I still check up on her everyday, whether or not anything was wrong. I’ll just check up on her if something good or bad happened. I enjoy being a safe space for the people that I’m comfortable with.”

Humans of Harker: Richa Bhattacharya strengthens friendships through listening

by Vijay Bharadwaj, Winged Post News Editor May 11, 2018

“She was the first person outside my advisory to talk to me at Harker,” Kunal Bhandarkar (12) said. “I didn't show it, but I was kind of nervous about that day, and we were doing a ropes course,...

As a kid, I think I always liked exploring and I liked going outdoors, Amy Dunphy said. My backyard had a lot of trees in it, so I was always trying to climb one, trying to get up in any way I could. I spent a lot of time there, and Id see things that interested me, see things that were weird, like Why does this leaf have spots? like Why is this bug this way? and I, you know, sometimes tried experimenting with them. Mostly just tried poking at them with sticks.

Humans of Harker Video: Amy Dunphy ventures into uncharted scientific territory

by Nina Gee, Humans of Harker Videographer May 8, 2018

This is the third installment of the Humans of Harker 2018 video series. Through this project, the Harker journalism program aims to tell the story of the senior class, one profile at a time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29AfKd3_3KM

I like messing with computers, Sunny Jayam (12) said. I started with taking stuff apart and then I started actually learning what the things did on the computer because theyre so complex. Theyre small, you know, compared to big machinery and stuff and I started learning about how these would work. Then in freshman year, I built one and it was a big learning experience, and I learned that theres a whole community that lives and breathes computers. I just remember like just going into my dads office over the weekends to try and figure out how I get this game to work on my fathers computer. I took like a solid week, just trying to make it work. I finally got it. It was fun.

Humans of Harker: Sunny Jayam solves problems in the robotics lab

by Anthony Xu, Reporter May 6, 2018

On most days, after packing up his books from his last period, senior Sunjit “Sunny” Jayam (12) heads over to the robotics lab — his “office” of sorts. “Both my parents have been involved...

“I realized that there was more to high school than just sitting with my books and studying, and I realized that instead of following that set formula of study hard, hopefully get good grades, get into a good college, I can kind of learn from the people around me and I can get more social,” Shreyas Chandrashekaran (12) said. “I took those both standing up and I adapted to them I really have no regrets over those experiences because they really shaped who I am as a person. I would rather have those than be the single unifaceted person that I was in freshman year. If I had to do it again, a 100 times over, I would do it the same way.”

Humans of Harker: Shreyas Chandrashekaran adapts to his circumstances

by Vijay Bharadwaj, Winged Post News Editor May 5, 2018

Whenever you see Shreyas Chandrashekaran (12), he’s usually in the gym shooting hoops, tossing the football on the field with his friends during lunch — at least, while he’s not injured from a basketball...

“Part of the reason I was interested in archery and why I initially started it was because I like fantasy stories, Gwyneth Chen (12) said. I read and watch movies with my family, and it pops up a lot. Its interesting because the way my instructor teaches it is not competitive, so I get to treat it more like meditation. Theres the idea of perfecting yourself and your own focus, which makes it a little bit different from traditional sports, and thats the part of it that I really enjoy.

Humans of Harker: Gwyneth Chen’s crafts embody her quiet elegance

by Emily Chen, Reporter May 4, 2018

The delicately twisted piece of gold wire forms a perfectly spiraled ring on Gwyneth Chen’s (12) pinky, the ends connected by a crystal and the sides detailed with coiled wire. “I do wire jewelry...

“I want to be remembered for being wise and kind, and I chose the word wise specifically because I dont want to be remembered as smart, Lauren Russell (12) said. I want to be remembered as being able to look at a situation and react maturely, appropriately but also kindly based on what I know.”

Humans of Harker: Lauren Russell participates with intention

by Anmol Velagapudi and Melissa Kwan, Reporter May 3, 2018

According to Lauren Russell (12), puzzles and books are great ways to “not-think.” “I really like puzzles, and not just like spread out puzzles on the board and make the picture, but a lot of...

[In high school,] my new group of friends was very different from anything previously. In middle school, all we did was do math competitions and play cards, Swapnil Garg (12) said. But in ninth grade, nobody did that—during lunch, you had to sit at a table and have discussions. I had to learn to be able to be more intellectual, and to provide more substance in my thinking abilities relating to things that were not just math. I was very scared of, for example, English class.

Humans of Harker: Swapnil Garg branches beyond math

by Derek Yen, Winged Post Opinion Editor May 2, 2018

Senior Swapnil Garg is perhaps best known for his mathematical abilities. An avid participant in math olympiads and other competitions, Swapnil has been competing since sixth grade. "At the beginning...

I have a degenerative disc in my back, Taylor Kohlmann (12) said. When I got injured, I realized that the thing that I’ve thrown myself into, maybe it’s not the only thing I might enjoy. There was one summer where my coach and my doctor talked and they were like ‘don’t swim. See if it will go away.’ That was the summer that I was able to go on that Japan trip and do new things, and I started working as a lifeguard, which I wouldn’t have done because I wouldn’t have had time because I would have been at the pool for like six hours.

Humans of Harker: Taylor Kohlmann reflects on family, friends and unexpected new paths born from setback

by Sahana Srinivasan, Winged Post Editor-in-Chief May 1, 2018

Taylor Kohlmann’s lifelong race in the swimming pool began for a small, innocuous reason: in first grade, several of her friends hosted pool parties for their birthdays; she didn’t know how to swim,...

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