Last week, Harker’s Youth Activism Club hosted a talk with Felix Wu’ 15, who discussed his career in politics and how young people can start their own careers in politics. As a student at Emory University, Wu worked as a field organizer on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in Iowa and as regional organizing director on Elizabeth Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign in Iowa. He currently works for the Progressive Turnout Project, whose goal is to increase Democratic voter turnout in tight races throughout the country.
Wu, whose own political career started in high school, talked about some of the ways students can get involved. “High school’s one of those times when you have a lot of freedom to get involved in your community,” he said. These can range from hosting podcasts to working for local politicians, as Wu did for Mike Honda in 2014. He also organized forums on political issues including Obamacare and held screenings for documentaries about immigration reform.
More opportunities become available in college, including working for political campaigns in various capacities, such as fundraising, polling, organizing and graphic design. “Campaigns are a great way to get started. They’re a great way to build a network,” Wu said. “You’re meeting other young people who are jumping into that process for the first time, and perhaps more important than that, you’re learning to talk to voters from all backgrounds.”
Internships in Washington, D.C., are also available to college students, which Wu said provide a great opportunity to learn about the culture of Capitol Hill. “Congress is a really special place with a really unique work culture,” he said. “You’ll see a Democratic congressman and maybe a Republican congressman going at it on the House floor arguing, and then a couple hours later, you might see them laughing it up at the lunchroom. It’s a unique place and you kind of learn about the dynamics of party politics, how people work together and come to consensus.”
Wu also took some time to answer questions on a number of topics, including what he has learned about the legislative process. “I think it’s tough. It’s kind of slow going. People get frustrated at Congress, but I think when you’re actually there, you realize that a lot of stuff does get done that flies under the radar,” he said. “People in Congress work long hours. They work really hard to get stuff done and come to consensus and frankly it doesn’t get recognized that much.”
He also shared advice for people who felt burnt out on the political process and relentless campaign cycles. “First off, if you’re having political burnout, I’d say it’s completely OK. A lot of us were burned out after November, and it’s totally OK to shut off the news for a while and just not think about it,” he advised. Referring to people who feel that not much has been accomplished, Wu noted that “We’ve seen a lot of progress. Earlier this year, I think the whole country was rethinking race as it relates to our politics, and we’ve seen great strides when it comes to LGBTQ issues in the past decade or so. It wasn’t so long ago that a Democratic president wasn’t in support … of marriage equality.”
Wu also stressed the importance of the role young people played in the progress made so far. “Young people have really been leading the charge on these conversations about race,” he said. “When you’re having those conversations around the dinner table or you’re encouraging your friends to vote, talking to your neighbors and such, I think that’s when we really see glimmers of hope even when we see gridlock going on in Congress.”
On Sept. 25, CareerConnect held a Harker alumni panel via Zoom. Three alumni, Haley Tran ’17, Lucas Wang ’17 and Vignesh Panchanatham ’18, talked about things students should know before graduating from high school. They discussed founding and joining clubs, finding summer opportunities, their college experiences and more. In addition, they answered many questions from students.
“This event helped me learn more about the little niches in school and outside of school to do before graduating high school,” said Jessica Zhou, grade 10, commented. “Fostering a connection with teachers in the subjects you are interested in can help you down the road when doing events or projects related to it and making sure to do what you enjoy is extremely important.”
The event was a great success and helped students learn about how to get involved in the Harker community and make the most of high school!
Last week, Rohan Shah ’10 was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Retail & Ecommerce category. Extend, the company he co-founded in 2019, provides an easy method for merchants to offer warranties and protection plans. Its high-profile clients include Logitech, Harman and Advance Auto Parts. Extend allows customers to easily file claims online and receive fast approval, and the company receives a portion of each warranty sale. Extend’s $56 million in funding has come from benefactors including PayPal Ventures, Meritech Capital and Pritzker Group Ventures.
A Harker Lifer, Shah was also a three-sport athlete, which earned him the Super Eagle award for Harker athletes who participate in three sports in a single semester. As a football player, Shah was invited to play in Silicon Valley Youth Classic High School Football All-Star Game in 2010.
Earlier this week, Amiti Uttarwar ‘10 was named to the annual Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Finance category. Uttarwar was recognized for being the first known woman to become a Bitcoin Core contributor and becoming one of the few paid developers of bitcoin’s code when she was awarded a joint grant of $150,000 from OKCoin and HDR Global in June. A profile of Uttarwar published by Forbes in July chronicled her life as the child of Indian immigrants who found a passion for community service at a young age, eventually becoming a board member of Girls For A Change, a San Jose-based organization that encourages girls to develop local projects that benefit their communities.
After graduating from Harker, she attended Carnegie Mellon University, majoring in information systems. She eventually landed at Simbi, where she discovered her love of cryptocurrency. After a stint at a company called Coinbase, Uttarwar took a residency at Chaincode Labs in 2019 to become a Bitcoin Core developer, working directly with bitcoin’s underlying code. Her work at Chaincode resulted in a sponsorship by the Hong Kong-based crypto company Xapo and the landmark OKCoin/HDR Global joint grant.
The group’s performance of Ysaye Barnwell’s “Spiritual” was recorded and posted to YouTube as part of the annual C# Harvest Concert, which took place virtually this year. The event is organized by CMU C#, the vocal club that oversees D Flat Singers and other vocal ensembles. “Since holding a live concert wasn’t an option this year, we decided to make it virtual,” said Banga. “The structure of the concert was the same as usual in that we had acts by C#’s performance groups and other CMU a cappella groups, and we also held auditions open to the entire CMU community for the smaller group acts.”
Adapting to the virtual format meant finding new ways to rehearse and put together a performance. “We meet regularly using Zoom, but the lag makes it impossible to sing as a group,” Banga said. “So, we spend most of our rehearsals talking about musicality, learning new techniques and giving individual feedback.”
To create the performance for YouTube, the singers each recorded themselves singing their parts along with the conductor’s recording. “Afterwards, the rest of the choir recorded themselves while listening to the section leader recordings,” said Banga. “This way, we could blend with each other even when we weren’t in the same room.”
The decision to support 1Hood stemmed from the wave of massive protests that took place this year in response to police killings of Black Americans. “The Black Lives Matter movement impacted us all so much this year, and like many others, we were extremely upset and frustrated by the injustices in our country,” Banga noted. “After a great deal of reflection on what we could do as an org, we realized that there is a tremendous lack of diversity in mainstream Western choral music.” As such, Banga and the D Flat Singers’ conductor decided to sing pieces by living Black composers for the entirety of the semester. “We’re currently working on commissioning a piece by a Black composer for next semester,” Banga said. “C# also committed to donating all proceeds from our concerts to BLM related organizations, and 1Hood was a perfect match since they’re a Pittsburgh-based organization that supports Black artists and activists.”
On Nov. 5, the Harker Investment Club and Harker DECA co-hosted alumnus Amit Mukherjee ‘06, who spoke to students over Zoom about his journey from Harker to venture capital and his job as an investment partner at New Enterprise Associates. He discussed how his experiences at Harker and Princeton helped him in his career, and walked students through what his job as a venture capital partner entails by sharing his process of investing in the company Masterclass.
He moved on to highlight his failures in school and as a partner at NEA, sharing his advice on how to stay confident and grow from such experiences through journaling and meditation.
“How he revealed the failures that are hidden behind successes was meaningful to me, and it really reinforced the advice he was giving,” said Alexa Lowe, grade 11. “I also really liked the journaling and meditation aspect of the presentation, which was especially relevant because of the assembly we had about those topics a couple weeks ago.”
On Friday night, four Harker alumni – A.J. Reid ‘04, Chris Davis ‘03, Candace Silva-Martin ‘09 and Isabelle Connell ‘13 – were inducted into the Harker Athletic Hall of Fame during a special virtual ceremony. During the event, upper school athletic director Dan Molin and middle and lower school athletic director Theresa “Smitty” Smith each shared some warm words about each of this year’s inductees, who were honored not just for their athletic prowess but also for their commitment to Harker’s goal of creating well-rounded global citizens.
A.J. Reid ‘04, who was a multi-sport athlete during his entire time at Harker, was named MVP of the varsity football team in his senior year after rushing for 908 yards and scoring seven touchdowns. He also was recognized for his achievements as a wide receiver, making 42 receptions for 718 yards and seven touchdowns. In basketball, Reid played a key role in Harker’s first ever CCS playoff victory and was named both team and league MVP his senior year. Reid continued to play sports after high school, competing in club volleyball as a student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and helping his team win the NIRSA National Volleyball Championship, for which he was awarded MVP.
A four-sport athlete while at Harker, Chris Davis ’03 competed in football, wrestling, soccer and baseball and was team captain for the varsity baseball and football teams. Davis was the second Harker football player to be chosen to play in the Charlie Wedemeyer High School All-Star football game, and the first from Harker to play college football. Davis played Division 3 football as a student at Claremont McKenna College and was a standout defensive player, reaching the school’s fifth-highest number of interceptions in a single season and being named defensive MVP and Second Team All-West for Division 3. He is a co-founder and CEO of the fan commerce site Loot Crate.
Volleyball phenom Candace Silva-Martin ’09 was, along with fellow Hall of Famer Tanya Schmidt ’08, a key member of the 2007 upper school volleyball squad that reached the CCS finals and CIF state championships. In her junior and senior years, she was named All-County by the San Jose Mercury News, and was an All-West Bay Athletic League selection no fewer than four times. In her senior year, Silva-Martin was named a Super Eagle for competing in three sports in a single school year. While at George Washington University, Silva-Martin was named Atlantic 10 Conference defensive player of the week, Atlantic 10 rookie of the week and co-defensive player of the week in her first year, and is the Atlantic 10 Conference’s all-time digs leader.
Isabelle Connell ’13, a cross country and track and field competitor while at Harker, still holds four of the five school records she set as a Harker student. She was also one of the first two Harker track athletes to compete at the California Interscholastic Federation meet, along with Sumit Minocha ’13. She also received the Iron Eagle award – given to Harker athletes who demonstrate the highest degree of dedication to their school and teammates during off-season and pre-season in addition to the regular season – and the Director’s Award, which is bestowed upon seniors who played at least one sport for four years, received recognition at the state or section level and demonstrated commitment, leadership and a strong work ethic.
On Sept. 25, CareerConnect held a Harker alumni panel via Zoom. Three alumni – Haley Tran ’17, Lucas Wang ’17 and Vignesh Panchanatham ’18 – talked about things that students should know before graduating high school. They discussed founding and joining clubs, finding summer opportunities, their college experiences and more. In addition, they answered many questions from students, giving insights into what to know before graduating high school and ways to learn more about topics professionally.
In all, the event was a success and gave students a chance to learn more about how to take advantage of all the opportunities Harker has to offer. “This event helped me learn more about the little niches in school and outside of school to do before graduating high school,” said Jessica Zhou, grade 10. “Fostering a connection with teachers in the subjects you are interested in can help you down the road when doing events or projects related to it and making sure to do what you enjoy is extremely important.”
Earlier this week, Michael Sikand ‘18 spoke to Michael Acheatel’s business and entrepreneurship students. Sikand, currently attending the University of Michigan, spoke about how he was first introduced to business studies in his freshman year at Harker.
“When I pulled up to Harker in freshman year … I didn’t even think [business] was something people studied or that people thought about,” he said, adding that he now views his first B.E. class with Juston Glass as “one of the greatest gifts” he has experienced in life. “What high schools are allowing you to immerse yourself in the world of B.E. in freshman year?” he asked.
During his time at Harker, Sikand got heavily involved with DECA and helped start the Harker Incubator program, the first high school program of its kind. “It exposed to me to a lot of great ideas, and I’ve always been someone who loved helping others succeed and telling other peoples’ stories and enabling other people to get excited about business,” he said.
After graduating, Sikand headed to the University of Michigan to study at the Ross School of Business, where he and fellow Harker alum Dolan Dworak ‘18 came up with an idea for a company called Pythia, which would connect college professors to companies “to do business projects with corporate data.” The company failed, as Sikand put it, because “merging academia and business is very difficult because the incentives are misaligned and we wanted to be the intermediary that did it, but we didn’t really have the funding to do it.”
Nevertheless, Sikand said the experience was valuable because it helped him build relationships with professors at Michigan. “I know professors at Michigan on a first-name basis and that just created huge dividends for me because it’s enabled to me to kind of network with the smartest and most successful people on campus,” he said.
Sikand later started a business podcast and media company, both called “Our Future.” Aimed at young professionals seeking a shorter, more entertaining business podcast, “Our Future” has grown considerably in popularity since its inception, reaching, by his estimate, thousands of people each week. His guests have included notable business leaders, entrepreneurs and other figures, including executives from the NBA and AirBNB as well as legendary entrepreneurs such as Guy Kawasaki.
Recently, Sikand has been looking into ways to expand the podcast into other media. “I realized that what I was doing went beyond audio; I wanted to create a multimedia startup that really spoke to the young professional that’s intellectually curious and wants to learn and grow in the business world,” he said. To this end, he started a newsletter to deliver weekly advice and information from top business leaders. He is currently exploring additional ways to distribute this content.
Over the summer, upper school English teacher Chris Hurshman led a book club with several Harker alumni, meeting each week to discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s final novel, “The Brothers Karamazov.”
“I was dreading losing connection with people and longing for a bit of intellectual community over the summer,” said Hurshman. “So I posted an open call to Harker alums on Facebook and invited them to join me in reading and discussing a long novel of their choice.” With similar summer reading activities already established with current students, Hurshman decided to “carry on that habit with our alums.”
“Karamazov” was selected via an online poll, edging out George Eliot’s “Middlemarch.” “When Mr. Hurshman reached out, I thought it was a great opportunity to get to know some new people and take my first step into Russian literature,” said Sana Pandey ‘20. “‘The Brothers Karamazov’ has been called one of the best books of all time, and I wanted to read it and hear about other people’s perspectives on it.”
“I was interested in participating because the book club seemed like a good way both to spend some time with my former classmates and also explore subjects not included within my college studies,” said Derek Yen ‘18, who is currently attending MIT. “Between the interests of the student body and the structure of my coursework, I haven’t had as many opportunities to enjoy literature and participate in literary discussion in college.”
The club met each week via Zoom, and participants found both the reading and the discussions fruitful. “This might have been a byproduct of how ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ is written, but I really enjoyed the intellectual debates that some of the plot points or themes sparked,” said Pandey. “Oftentimes, even though book club was meant to last an hour, we would continue deliberating on the moral or social groundings of a character’s decisions and standpoints for at least an hour after we were supposed to end.”
Hurshman said he hopes that these organized discussions will continue, and possible topics for the next summer are already being discussed, “with some asking to read ‘Middlemarch’ and others to organize a discussion group centered on film or on poetry reading,” he said. “I’m hopeful that, regardless of its final form, this can become a growing tradition and that we’ll be able resume these conversations in person someday.”