The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila
“Working on Roobi has taught me how to bounce back from failures, and that problems need to be addressed one bit at a time because you can't just tackle huge goals. I learned to not be afraid of failure because every failure is a step towards success. I try not to look back and wish I could change something because I can't. It's the past. Instead, I look forward," senior Daniel Dorfman said.
Humans of Harker: Steeped for success
“With volleyball and Medical Club, I love working with people. I get to work with people who aren't necessarily in my classes or aren't my friends specifically, but we get to work hard and work together towards a common goal. That collaboration aspect is really important to me," senior Navya Samuel said.
Humans of Harker: Cooperation through competition
“Human connection is very important to staying grounded and stable. The people around me are one of the reasons that I'm not fully burnt out, so I really prioritize keeping a good schedule for myself. Being able to prioritize the things in life that give me internal satisfaction is important to me because that's what allows me to have the drive to do good with the rest of my time. Talking to people is a way for me to replenish," senior Kashish Priyam said.
Humans of Harker: Pep in every step
“It's very important to make sure the people in your life know they're important to you. Whether that's doing small acts of kindness or just being there whenever they need you, having a really strong support system is what gets you through life, and it's a really valuable life skill to have," Sofie Marino (12) said.
Humans of Harker: Pillar of support
“My karate teachers emphasize that as black belts, we should be living up to the standard of our rank and acting as an example for the students who are lower-ranked.' When I’m helping out and someone messes up, I don't necessarily say, ‘You did this wrong, try to do this.’ I take a more relaxed approach and act out what they did a little comically. It's finding the balance between being strict and being more playful with the students," senior Claire Perng said.
Humans of Harker: Playing with purpose
Humans of Harker: Cooking with creativity
Humans of Harker: Cooking with creativity
“There's a lot of value in every moment and everyone around you. I appreciate people who just appreciate the little things. For me, I feel like everyone you meet can teach you a little bit, and that's something that I've really internalized over the years. I think that's part of why I like being around people and different communities so much. Because in each of these communities, you can learn so many different things from everyone," Olivia Xu ('24) said.
Humans of Harker: Purpose towards progress
“I get to choose how much effort and detail I put in, and that’s what you’re going to see in the end. I love that you can see the truth on paper. A lot of my work is in black and white, so I can’t rely on color to cover it up or make it more interesting — I can only rely on my skill and willingness to go into the studio and add to my piece," Katelyn Zhao ('24) said.
Humans of Harker: Envisioning the everyday
"I used to think that I have to keep doing dance just because it's what I’m known for. But now I’ve realized there’s beauty behind all the madness that happens. And it’s now a part of me, so not doing dance or not having Legos is like I’m losing a part of my identity," Luke Mehta ('24) said.
Humans of Harker: Building with style
“Why not? So many things are very foreign or unknown to us, but there’s not much to lose by just trying things. I initially wasn’t very comfortable with DECA, especially with impromptu, but the community really helped me grow out of that. And DECA is now one of my top high school memories. Just giving things a try is really worth it, and if it fails, the worst thing that can happen is you just try something else," Claire Luo ('24) said.
Humans of Harker: It’s all in the details
"Being a lifer, I really want to put my knowledge to use. Being a TEDx speaker is a really big honor in and of itself, but to be able to actually address the Harker community was really important to me because I wanted to have an impact on the place that I've been at for 13 years," Arissa Huda ('23) said.
Humans of Harker: Prescribing change
"I’ve learned discipline: practicing a lot and then knowing what your strengths are, knowing where to improve. That discipline is definitely going to stay with me. If I’m trying to get a big piece of work done in general when I'm interested in it, I'll stop at nothing to reach my goals," Linette Hoffman ('23) said.
Humans of Harker: Artistry in motion
"I have this philosophy with theater. I wholeheartedly believe that my life was made for the stage, and all my make or break moments have happened there. While some people learn best through lectures or visuals, I learn best from having a spotlight on me," Zubin Khera ('23) said.
Humans of Harker: Scripts to success
"One of the most important things for me about performing is its transformative power. There was one concert where we were singing this commission about gun violence, followed by a piece about climate change, a piece about the Holocaust. Watching the audience's expressions and how they reacted to the music we were singing was the first time that I was like, ‘Whoa, music has the power to change lives and engender positive change,’” Sawyer Lai ('23) said.
Humans of Harker: Symphony of spirit
"It’s been fun getting to know the chefs at La Mar, their team and how different cultural influences blend together. For example, they make ceviche, which is a traditional Peruvian dish, but they infuse it with many different cultures. They have a version of their ceviche which is inspired by African tastes and spices, and they also have a Japanese form of that same ceviche dish. I think it’s interesting to watch how these fusion dishes form," Alex Lan ('23) said.
Humans of Harker: Flavors of knowledge
Prakrit Jain ('22) searches for new animal species to help the environment and wildlife.
Humans of Harker: Scorpion spotter
Arnav Gupta ('22) moves a DNA construction.
Humans of Harker: Coding for a cause
“[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.
Humans of Harker: Blast of creativity
"Every single person I've interviewed for Humans of Harker has said one killer quote that has stuck with me even through four years of high school, and I think I really do internalize those messages. There are nuances in every single person's experience that makes it unique to them and also makes it a good lesson for everyone else. It's just amazing to see how much wisdom every single person at Harker has, and it's fascinating to learn about those stories," Erica Cai ('22) said.
Humans of Harker: Harmony in humanity
“Something I took away from baseball is that there's always the opportunity to bounce back when things don't go particularly right. Even the best hitters only go one for three, so being able to push through that is one of the most important parts of the game. Being able to identify what goes wrong and learning from that is important to being able to find success in the future," Mark Hu ('22) said.
Humans of Harker: The perfect pitch
Humans of Harker: Perseverance on par
Humans of Harker: Perseverance on par
It's been obviously rough, turning on the news and seeing another death, seeing another acquittal every single time … but, ‘How much can I do?’ is the question I'm asking myself. ‘How much can I help, and what impact can I have?’” Brian Pinkston ('21) said.
Humans of Harker: For the future and the present
“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.
Humans of Harker: Leading with DECA-cation
Class of 2021: Humans of Harker compilation, part three
Class of 2021: Humans of Harker compilation, part three
“I feel really good about myself when I'm relaxed and enjoying the world. There’s so much to learn about the world and so many ways to do so," Daniel Wang ('21) said.
Humans of Harker: Mapping the unknown
"I'm the person that always has a plan for everything. And then I have backups for the plan, and I have backups for the backups," Nicole Chen ('19) said.
Humans of Harker: Calendars for a cause
"I don’t ever intend on letting the internal love of life that I have leave me. As I grow up and I maintain my love for the random things I do, I know I’ll be happy– and hopefully people around me will be, as well," Mathew Mammen ('19) said.
Humans of Harker: Jack of all trades, master of fun
Humans of Harker: To dance, to feel
Humans of Harker: To dance, to feel
"The more serious side, people will never see. You'll never see who's behind one of these websites that people may be using," Neil Ramaswamy (12) said. "Several freshmen have approached me like, 'hey, you're the really funny guy at school meeting' and I'm like 'hey, yeah, nice to meet you' and at the same time they might be using an application that I've written not knowing that it's me. I kind of get that personal satisfaction knowing that there is a serious side to me, you just don't know about it."
Humans of Harker: Dueling with duality
Humans of Harker: Humanity in art
Humans of Harker: Humanity in art
“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.
Humans of Harker: Neymika Jain finds balance in life
“A lot of the time, when I’m out at nail salons, nailers ask me if I‘m Vietnamese. I say yes, but they say that I don’t speak the language and have never been back to Vietnamese, so am I really? I always felt disconnected, like I would be Vietnamese-American but never Vietnamese. When I went to Vietnam for the first time, it brought me closer to my culture. I realized I shouldn’t view myself as a different. I have to see Vietnamese-American and Vietnamese as one and the same," Haley Tran (12) said.
Humans of Harker: Haley Tran values her cultural identity
“One time, I was hiking up this giant off-trail path, and this is going to make me sound like a complete hippy, but what I was thinking at the moment was that every single tree out there must have had some sort of backstory. Even when I was walking to Shah, there was this tree right next to the building, and I was like, ‘Maybe this tree had a lot of other tree friends, but then this building came up and they had to get cut down.’ That made me pretty sad. So, when I was coming up with backstories for trees, it reminded me of my childlike innocence of playing pretend or playing with my stuffed animals because I thought my imagination would never run as wild as it once did. But, this experience made me feel happy because it’s something that I’ve lost, and I feel like I gained some of it back," Aashish Jain (12) said.
Humans of Harker: Aashish Jain finds inspiration in painting through watching Bob Ross videos
“For me, robotics has always been a great way to learn about how to build things and how things work. Honestly, that is the reason why I love robotics. When you see everything working, you look at it and say 'I helped make this happen,' which is really really gratifying," Andrew Tierno (12) said.
Humans of Harker: Andrew Tierno reflects on his passion for robotics
“A lot of being a choreographer is about digging deep, understanding, and finding out which event leads to the next, which is basically what science is. You would take a circuit and break it apart to understand each of the components, and you would do that to a song,” Sneha Bhetanabhotla (‘17) said.
Humans of Harker: Sneha Bhetanabhotla learns to connect robotics and dance
“I can be serious, and I care a lot about a lot of things, but I also just like having fun and people feeling comfortable being their true selves,” Isabella Spradlin (12) said. “You don't have to be one-sided — you can have different sides of your personality, and different moods.”
Humans of Harker: Isabella Spradlin gleans insight from sisterhood
“This is like a melting pot of Cupertino, Lynbrook, Saratoga, some people from De Anza, so you meet all kinds of people,” Rahul Mehta (12) said. “Half the time I’m not even playing with my friends, so I’m playing with random people. You start off in the beginning a bit wary of each other, and then by end you’re playing like they’re your friends. It’s kind of gradual. Like after a really cool play, you’ll high five each other, and that’s how it all begins.”
Humans of Harker: Rahul Mehta befriends others through banter
"People are always debating, you know, ‘should I go up to a higher weight or not?’ And I’ll just yell, ‘do it, you won’t,’" Tiffany Shou (12) said. "And then, you know, it’s like that challenge, and so it always pushes them pick that higher weight, and then they can accomplish it, so it’s even more gratifying."
Humans of Harker Video: Tiffany Shou pushes her limits in the weight room
“First, I start at my house,” Sparsh Chauhan (12) said. “Then, I turn on Saratoga, and it’s always crowded with traffic and stuff. That’s when I’m setting the music, checking the tire pressure, the gas. After downtown, the road gets smooth, which is when I put the windows down. I go all the way down until there’s a dip and then I go back. Even when I have stuff to do, I drive that same route every day. I don’t have to take directions. I know all the traffic times; I know exactly where I’m going.”
Humans of Harker: Sparsh Chauhan takes pride in his work
“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.”
Humans of Harker: Angel Cervantes chases his goals
“[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.
Humans of Harker: Learning to fall
“You just have to go for it. You think, 'In the future, if I think back and regret it, is that how I want to end up — or would I rather just try something and see what happens?' Usually, it turns out well,” Montek Kalsi (’20) said. 
Humans of Harker: All fun and games
“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.
Humans of Harker: Leadership and love
Humans of Harker: Grit and grind
Humans of Harker: Grit and grind
Humans of Harker: Artistic nonconformity
Humans of Harker: Artistic nonconformity
The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila
The student news site of The Harker School.

Harker Aquila
Mihir Kotbagi

Mihir Kotbagi, Opinions Editor

Mihir Kotbagi (11) is an Opinions editor for Harker Aquila and the Winged Post, and this is his third year on staff. This year, Mihir is looking to hone his photography skills and learn more about the ins and outs of journalism. In his free time, he likes to play chess, read books, and program.

All content by Mihir Kotbagi
Groove back into school with Aquila

Groove back into school with Aquila

by Mihir Kotbagi, Opinions Editor
December 2, 2024
The competitive culture Harker students have established exacerbates the pressure they feel when overwhelmed. Often times, this leads to cheating on tests or quizzes.

Shortcutting success

by Ashley Mo and Mihir Kotbagi
November 21, 2024
Harker Robotics members Mikhil Kiran (11), Arturo Vilalta (11) and Ayden Grover (10) plan their strategy before sending their robot on the field. The team reached the finals at this year’s Capital City Classic alongside alliance partners Eagle Force, Duncan Dynamics and Robodores.

Robotics makes finals at Capital City Classic

by Mihir Kotbagi and Charlie Wang
November 2, 2024
Olivia Guo (12) hits the ball during her match against Menlo's Emily Li. She started off strong, winning 7-6 in her first set, but went on to lose 2-6 and 3-10 in a hard-fought game.

Varsity girls tennis suffers 3-4 loss to Menlo

by Mihir Kotbagi and Jonathan Szeto
October 18, 2024
Eliminating the death penalty means that America’s judiciary would never kill an innocent person again — not that criminals would walk free. While wrongful prison sentences are tragic, they can be revisited and resolved unlike capital punishment.

Capital punishment is guilty. America should kill it.

by Mihir Kotbagi, Co-Opinions Editor
October 14, 2024
Students chat and eat together during lunch. Every day, the kitchen staff serves over a thousand lunches within an hour.

Follow life cycle of food

by Victor Gong, Katerina Matta, Mihir Kotbagi, Ashley Mo, Jonathan Szeto, Cynthia Xie, and Alison Yang
October 11, 2024
Two Harker Day attendees play with slime at a booth in Nichols Hall. Nichols featured a variety of different booths to engage with students and parents.

Community celebrates fourth annual Harker Day

by Mihir Kotbagi, Ashley Mo, Jonathan Szeto, Samuel Tong, Risa Chokhawala, Lily Peng, and Charlie Wang
October 8, 2024
Live coverage: Harker challenges Anzar High School for Homecoming football game

Live coverage: Harker challenges Anzar High School for Homecoming football game

by Emma Milner, Alison Yang, Eva Cheng, Tiffany Zhu, Sidak Sanghari, Gabe Sachse, Hima Thota, Aishani Singh, Kairui Sun, Ashley Mo, Jonathan Szeto, Charlie Wang, Suhani Gupta, Claire Yu, Janam Chahal, Mihir Kotbagi, Mendy Mao, Ella Guo, Samuel Tong, Caden Ruan, Sam Li, Lily Peng, Claire Xu, Chelsea Xie, and Katerina Matta
October 5, 2024
As part of a school-wide Wi-Fi upgrade, the IT team replaced old wireless access points with new Ruckus devices in every classroom. Members of the community should expect reliable internet connection anywhere on campus with improved speeds and security.

Wi-Fi overhaul hopes to bring widespread coverage across campus

by Jonathan Szeto, Mihir Kotbagi, and Charlie Wang
September 30, 2024
TALON photo editor Ram Batchu (11) discusses framing techniques while analyzing a photo taken by an attendee. Participants took 15 minutes to capture scenes from the convention, after which journalism photo editors critiqued their photos.

Journalism photo editors help attendees “Snap Better Photos” at JEA NorCal Media Day

by Mihir Kotbagi, Jonathan Szeto, and Charlie Wang
September 28, 2024
Apple's expanded repair policy has the potential to have a meaningful impact on the environment if customers opt to repair their devices instead of replacing them. However, it only represents a small step forward in the fight against climate change.

Humans of Harker: A dash of laughter

Humans of Harker: A dash of laughter

by Mihir Kotbagi, Co-Opinions Editor
April 26, 2024
Team 1072's technical president Chiling Han (11) runs code on the robot at the competition's practice field. Despite multiple rounds of bug fixes, the robot's autonomous routine failed to run properly.

Robotics team bounces back at Sacramento Regional

by Mihir Kotbagi and Charlie Wang
April 11, 2024
In 2023 alone, over 10,000 research papers were withdrawn, setting a new global record. Journals subject papers to stringent review processes facilitated by expert peer reviewers, but many procedural and factual errors still manage to slip past inattentive editors, threatening to damage the reputation of legitimate scientific research.

Science has an integrity problem

by Mihir Kotbagi, Assistant STEM Editor
April 8, 2024
An NVIDIA RTX GeForce 4070 Super sits on a wooden table, donning two fans, 12 GB of memory, and a bandwidth of 504 GB/s. NVIDIA's recent success largely lies within its state-of-the-art graphics processing units. (Provided by Ivan Chen)

Dominating the digital landscape: Core innovations drive NVIDIA to new heights

by Victor Gong and Mihir Kotbagi
April 3, 2024

Varsity boys tennis team triumphs over Sacred Heart Preparatory 6-1

by Jonathan Szeto, Charlie Wang, and Mihir Kotbagi
March 17, 2024
Illustration by Emily Tan and Claire Zhao. Design by Victor Gong.

STEM Scene: Feb. 22

by Mihir Kotbagi and Claire Zhao
February 22, 2024
The Apple Vision Pro carries hyper-immersive experiences to the world of virtual reality. The headset released to all Apple stores on Feb. 2.

Apple of your eye: Vision Pro surges into the metaverse

by Victor Gong and Mihir Kotbagi
February 20, 2024
The exorbitant prices that Apple charges for basic upgrades to memory and storage mean that Windows devices often offer superior performance at a more affordable price.

The Apple ain’t so green: Windows laptops take a bite out of Apple

by Mihir Kotbagi, Assistant STEM Editor
February 19, 2024
“I discovered that physics is a lot more conceptual. It's not so much about the equations but more so, ‘Can you understand what's going on in the problem?’ For the longest time, something I struggled with was just trying to plug in equations and not really getting anywhere, but a teacher of mine made me realize that it's more about seeing the solution than just plugging in numbers,” Aniketh Tummala (12) said.

Humans of Harker: Deriving the lightbulb moment

by Mihir Kotbagi, Co-Assistant STEM Editor
January 26, 2024
STEM Scene: Jan. 16

STEM Scene: Jan. 16

by Victor Gong and Mihir Kotbagi
January 16, 2024
Music Monday is a new installation featuring a different category of songs on a weekly basis.

Music Monday: Jump-start 2024 with Aquila

by Mihir Kotbagi, Assistant STEM Editor
January 8, 2024
STEM Scene is Harker Aquila's STEM repeater focusing on current developments within the STEM world. This installation features five briefs.

STEM Scene: Nov. 28

by Ashley Mo and Mihir Kotbagi
November 28, 2023
A Harker attendee rides Green Team's smoothie bike on Oct. 7 in the Auxiliary Gym. The club collaborated with the Harker Robotics team starting earlier this year to build zero-energy bike consisting of only upcycled materials.

Global Reset: Spinning sustainable smoothies

by Victor Gong and Mihir Kotbagi
November 27, 2023
Sixes, centuries and celebrations at the Cricket World Cup

Sixes, centuries and celebrations at the Cricket World Cup

by Mihir Kotbagi and Disha Gupta
November 24, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin looks on as he directs a large-scale missile attack simulation from land, sea and air on Oct. 25. Rockets from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, a submarine in the Barents Sea, and a Tupolev Tu-95 in the air were fired to retaliate against a mock enemy nuclear attack. (Provided by AP News)

Russia conducts massive nuclear strike drill, withdraws from test ban treaty

by Mihir Kotbagi and Jonathan Szeto
November 18, 2023
Dark side of the moon: India’s space program soars to new heights

Dark side of the moon: India’s space program soars to new heights

by Victor Gong and Mihir Kotbagi
November 1, 2023
Sophomore Lincoln-Douglas debaters Roshan Amurthur and Sofia Shah pose with their trophies at the Mid America Cup's Sophomore Throw Down section. Sofia and Roshan finished in 1st and 2nd place, respectively, at one of the most prestigious invitational events in the country.

Eloquence and excellence: Speech and debate team starts season in style

by Mihir Kotbagi, Reporter
October 22, 2023
The Harker football team runs through the banner onto Davis Field for the 2023 Homecoming Football Game. The game took place on Saturday at the end of Harker Day.

Live coverage: Harker faces Crystal Springs Uplands for Homecoming game

by Alena Suleiman, Katerina Matta, Desiree Luo, Brandon Zau, Selina Xu, Medha Yarlagadda, Kevin Zhang, Katelyn Zhao, Ariana Goetting, Felix Chen, Vika Gautham, Anwen Hao, Sidak Sanghari, Aishani Singh, Hima Thota, Jessica Wang, Alison Yang, Jeremy Peng, Mihir Kotbagi, Claire Yu, and Tiffany Zhu
October 7, 2023
Marcus Blennemann (11) sprints up the largest hill of the course, nearing the end of the first mile. Marcus led the non-competing junior varsity (JV) boys team with a time of 22:58.

Cross-country kicks off season at De La Salle Invitational

by Jonathan Xue and Mihir Kotbagi
September 22, 2023
"There are not a lot of people who identify as Punjabi Sikh, so I used to really distance myself from it. But over quarantine, I was forced to sit with myself and figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. I started learning about my religion and history and realized how much I appreciate it. Now, I’m proud to say that I am who I am," Jasleen Hansra (12) said.

Humans of Harker: Unapologetic and unstoppable

by Mihir Kotbagi, Reporter
May 8, 2023
“I care about being conscious about the way that we live so we don't damage each other in the process. That's the thing that makes animal rights important — so that we can make more informed choices about the way that we act,” Leisha Devisetti (12) said.

Humans of Harker: Compassion in action

by Mihir Kotbagi, Reporter
March 1, 2023
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