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

Olivia Xu

Olivia Xu, Humans of Harker Co-Editor-in-Chief

Olivia Xu (12) is the co-editor-in-chief of Humans of Harker, and this is her fourth year on staff. She is excited to celebrate the Class of 2024 and collaborate with everyone on staff, and she hopes to build a community excited about storytelling. In her free time, Olivia enjoys crocheting gifts for her friends, taking walks, solving fun puzzles and binge-reading Humans of New York.

All content by Olivia Xu
“I discovered that physics is a lot more conceptual. Its not so much about the equations but more so, ‘Can you understand whats 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 its 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
Upper school English teacher Charles Shuttleworth poses with his recent book titled “Desolation Peak: Collected Writings, a collection of Beat Generation poet Jack Kerouac’s writings. “I did some good investigation, and it was really fun,” Shuttleworth said. “I love [Kerouacs] writing, I really respect it, so to be able to transcribe it just for myself was worth it. Overall, I felt I got to know and understand him better than I ever had.”

Taking a peek into “Desolation Peak”

by Olivia Xu, Humans of Harker Managing Editor
February 16, 2023
Christy Ma (9) and Leana Zhou (9) participate in an activity at the Future Problem Solvers launch on Sept. 17. At the event, the upper school FPS club introduced their central problem-solving process in different activities.

FPS Launch introduces students to problem-solving process

by Olivia Xu, Humans of Harker Managing Editor
September 27, 2022
“[Building nerf blasters] became this outlet of creativity for me that hasnt been matched by anything else. The process [of] making a build complete to your desire is such a painstakingly difficult process, but Ive had to learn from [the skills needed from] soldering to proper painting. Theres so many different options for everything, if you think about it, it exists. The best part is [that] if it doesnt exist, you can build it yourself, Ishaan Parate said.

Humans of Harker: Blast of creativity

by Olivia Xu, Managing Editor
August 15, 2022
Every single person Ive 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 persons experience that makes it unique to them and also makes it a good lesson for everyone else. Its just amazing to see how much wisdom every single person at Harker has, and its fascinating to learn about those stories, Erica Cai (22) said.

Humans of Harker: Harmony in humanity

by Olivia Xu, HoH Managing Editor
July 18, 2022
“Golf takes a lot of methodical thinking and calculations. Various factors, like the slope of a hill or the green or the wind or your current lie [angle], everything plays a factor in golf. You have to think about all those factors as you take that shot. That’s something that resonates with me; I like to think things through before I do [them], Raj Patel (12) said.

Humans of Harker: An amiable approach

by Ethan Liu and Olivia Xu
February 4, 2022
Instead of trying to cling on to my routine during the pandemic, I was like, ‘I cant live like this for the rest of my life.’ Thats when I started to try and change things a little bit, [and] that made me proud of myself: being able to recognize that and [change] my mindset, Emma Cabral-Gurleroglu (12) said.

Humans of Harker: A change of pace

by Olivia Xu, Reporter
January 21, 2022
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