This article originally appeared in the summer 2014 Harker Quarterly.
Good morning. I would like to welcome members of the board of trustees, administration, faculty, staff, parents, friends and family, alumni, and the true guests of honor, the graduating Class of 2014. I have the privilege of saying a few words of farewell to our graduates each year. Like most graduation speeches, my talk takes the form of advice, like “Dare to Singletask” or “Love Like a Labrador.” Since my talk is the only remaining formality standing between you and your diplomas, I will continue the tradition of confining my remarks to one page of single-space, size twelve font. I am so confident that I can achieve this goal that I have even spelled out the number twelve. But I will make no promises about the size of my margins.
Today I turn for inspiration to the award-winning song “Let It Go” from the Disney movie “Frozen.” I know, I know, by now we all are tired of the song. My boys howl from the back seat when I play the song in the car, let down my hair, and belt out its chorus. I can do it here if you would like. But Rolling Stone Magazine calls “Let It Go” a “bona fide anthem that’s Disney’s single-biggest and best song in a generation.” Also, this year’s Oscar win for best song brings one of the writers of “Let it Go,” Robert Lopez, what the magazine calls “a rare EGOT (wins for Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony).” (By the way, EGOT is an unfortunate acronym; why not the more stylish TOGE or pithy GOET?)
The song is sung powerfully by Idina Menzel, or, as John Travolta mispronounced her name at the 2014 Oscars, “Adele Dazeem.” In case you didn’t know, there is now a widget that will “Travoltify” your name for free. For instance, my name Travoltified is Catherine Nicheems. “Travoltify,” unlike “selfie” and “derp,” hasn’t made it into the Oxford English Dictionary. If it does, however, it will have the unique classification of being a proper name that is also a transitive verb with only one possible direct object: another proper name. Spooky. Nonetheless, Menzel’s glorious voice makes the song so meaningful and memorable that even 2-year-olds know the words. I know you do, too.
The song and the movie have had their share of controversies. The biggest controversy is the transformation of Elsa into a slender, elegantly gowned ice diva at the moment of her liberation during this song. I will not address these controversies, but I will add one of my own: why is the male hero, an ice harvester named Kristoff, so good looking and oafishly charming? Why aren’t there any movies with stuffy administrators, like, say, heads of schools, as the heroes? Instead of Kristoff the hero could be named, well, Chris Nikoloff. I could swoop into a life or death situation, devise some policy, form a committee and save the day.
In any case, the song’s message is to, well, “let it go.” What exactly are you letting go? On one level, the song can be taken to suggest letting go of inhibitions, the past, caring what others think, or even fears. This is not unlike Buddha’s third noble truth. Buddha’s second noble truth is that we suffer because we desire, or “cling” to be exact. His third truth recommends letting go of desire, or clinging, a process called nirvana, which literally means to blow out, or “whew” as translated by Alan Watts. Buddha’s students would point out that this puts them into the paradoxical bind of desiring not to desire. Luckily there is a way out of that trap, but that is for another graduation. In any case, some of these interpretations have gotten the song into trouble, but I think there is a more precise message anyway.
For those of you who have taken psychology, you may be familiar with Carl Jung’s concept of the shadow, the unconscious part of yourself that you dare not recognize but that you eventually must integrate to become whole. Elsa’s secret power that turns everything into ice is her shadow, the part of herself that she hides to conform to society’s expectations. She sings “Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know.” Your 2014 baccalaureate student speaker, Efrey Noten, captured this sentiment with a quote from David Wallace: “Everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else.” It is Elsa’s shadow that she accepts, after years of concealing, and lets go. When she lets her shadow go, she builds a marvelous ice castle in the mountains; her shadow is finally liberated, as is her hair when she lets it down.
Acceptance and liberation aren’t enough, however; Elsa still has to integrate her shadow. Not until she allows herself to love her sister, and her complete self, does she fully integrate her shadow and use her powers for good, like creating ice skating rinks for her adoring subjects. Also, because shadow material contains all of your so-called imperfections, integrating your shadow means dropping perfectionism, too. Elsa sings, “That perfect girl is gone.” I know that good is the enemy of great, but perfect can be the enemy of good enough, and believe me, there will be plenty of times in your life when good enough will have to be, well, good enough.
In closing, all of the weaker, less desirable parts of yourself, those parts that you hide to conform, can be sources of power, of your unique expression in the world. They are the metaphorical frogs that transform into princes, or the dragons that fight for you instead of breathing fire at you. In the movie “Shrek,” remember how helpful Dragon becomes once she discovers love with Donkey? So my advice to you today is to let it go, with the “it” being that part of yourself that no one, not even you, acknowledges. Lao Tzu, the great author of the Tao Te Ching, said the following: “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.” You have spent 18 years becoming what you are and if you dare to let it go, you will discover just how wonderful who you are really is. Thank you.
Last month, the National Merit Scholarship Corporation began announcing this year’s National Merit Scholarship Winners – and 18 Harker graduating seniors have been named thus far.
Winners of the National Merit $2,500 scholarship are Stephanie Chen, Adarsh Battu, Shivani Chandrashekaran, Christopher Fu, Saachi Jain, Divyahans Gupta, Angela Ma, Rahul Sridhar, Aditya Batra, Meena Chetty, Vikram Sundar, Brandon Yang, Albert Zhao, Zareen Choudhury and Varun Mohan. These scholarships are awarded based on criteria such as academic standing, standardized test scores, community service, recommendations by school officials and student essays.
Harker also had three College-Sponsored Merit Scholarship winners. These awards are given by college officials to National Merit finalists who plan to attend the colleges that they represent. Winners of these awards receive between $500 and $2,000 for every year of attendance at their chosen school, for up to four years. Rebecca Chen and Nikkan Ghosh both received scholarships from the University of Southern California, and Benjamin Huchley’s award was courtesy of Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
This year’s sports season is behind us, but the honors continue to rain down, as both a Harker team and a recent grad were commended in the press this week.
Golf
Harker’s male golfers had the highest GPA of any boys golf team in the state of California this year! Last week, the California Interscholastic Federation announced its 2013-14 Academic Team Champions, honoring the high school teams with the highest GPAs in the state. For boys golf, the honor went to Harker’s squad. Congratulations to the team on this outstanding achievement!
Volleyball
The San Jose Mercury News named its top volleyball players last week, and 2014 Harker alum Andrew Zhu was awarded an Honorable Mention. Zhu is heading to New York University to continue his volleyball career!
On Saturday, the track and field team competed in the WBAL league trial at Gunn High School. Freshman Niki Iyer won her heats in the 1600m and the 800m to advance to the league finals next Saturday, where she will decline to run the 800m in order to concentrate on preparing to win the 3200m. Sophomore Alex Dellar also made the finals by placing third in the 800m. Freshman Winnie Li finished second in the 100m hurdles with a new school record of 18.36, and qualified for the high jump final with a 4’4” leap. Senior Nithya Vemireddy and junior Julia Wang qualified in the shot put and discus, respectively, while senior Arjun Kumar qualified in the shot put. In the discus, Kumar, and seniors Rohan Kapatkar and Sean Murali all threw lifetime bests to advance. Junior Sriv Irrinki finished third in the 100m to make the finals.
At the junior varsity level, freshman Davis Dunaway put on a show, winning three field events: the high jump, long jump and triple jump. All three were finals for the junior varsity athletes. Freshman Misha Ivkov finished third in the high jump and sixth in the long jump, and advanced to the finals in the 100m. Freshman Lucas Wang finished second in the long jump, just behind Dunaway. Sophomore Jonathon Hochberg finished second in the shot put, while sophomores Lev Sepetov and Zeyad El-Arabaty qualified for the 800m final.
Golf
Last week, the upper school varsity golf team continued its history run in the CCS regional tournament with a third place team finish, making them the first team in Harker’s history to qualify for the CCS finals.
The future of Harker golf looks exceptionally bright as well, as the middle school golf team won its fifth consecutive WBAL tournament, shooting a team 143 to beat out Menlo’s 155. Katherine Zhu, grade 8, shot a 36. Scout McNealy, grade 7, shot a 35. Daniel Little, grade 8, shot a 40. Alex King, grade 6, shot a 42. Jin Kim, grade 8, shot a 37. Sahil Kapur, grade 8, shot a 37. Shaan Gagneja, grade 8, shot a 35. Josh Broweleit, grade 8, shot a 37.
Soccer
The Preppy Awards, which honor the finest high school athletes in the Bay Area, has nominated Harker soccer star Joelle Anderson as Female Breakthrough Athlete of the Year. The Preppy Awards, held by Prep2Prep, will take place on May 18 at Club Auto Sport in San Jose.
May 9, 2014
Great news from the National Junior Science and Humanities Symposium in Washington D.C, where Junior Neil Movva presented in late April and came home with the first place prize in the engineering category for his project, A Novel Use of Infrared Light in Eye Tracking Systems.
Movva, who did all his research at Harker, earned a $12,000 scholarship and an invitation to the 2014 London International Youth Science Fair! “This has been without a doubt the most complete, satisfying and memorable science fair I have had the privilege of attending,” Movva said. “I want to thank all of you, again, for making this possible, and I’m excited to know that Harker will continue to offer these unique opportunities.”
This achievement is a historic double first for Harker, said Anita Chetty, science chair. “We have not placed first at JSHS and we have never gone abroad to an international fair,” she noted in her congratulatory note to Neil.
In early May, Movva made the tough choice to forego his trip to London in lieu of taking on an internship at Stanford University. “I’ll be stepping away a bit from engineering, working in a biomedical research division at the Hagey Lab at Stanford with a focus on reconstructive surgery,” said Movva. “I’ll be continuing some earlier research I have done on wound healing and tissue repair. I’ve already visited the lab a few times, and I’m really excited to work with the expert researchers in such an advanced technical setting. I’m looking forward to the summer!” Congrats, in duplicate, to Movva for his efforts on both science fronts!
March 24, 2014
Junior Neil Movva took second place at the Northern California/Western Nevada Junior Science and Humanities Symposium, held March 6-8 in Reno. This earned him a trip to Washington, D.C., to compete at the national symposium in late April.
Movva’s project dealt with eye trackers that allow people to use computers with eye movements. “For example, one could type on a keyboard just by focusing on individual keys,” Movva explained. His research showed that infrared (IR) light could be used to improve the accuracy of these devices. “Ultimately, I demonstrated a very simple IR eye tracker that was on par with high-end traditional systems,” said Movva.
In addition to second place at JSHS, the project also netted Movva first place in the engineering category at the 2013 Synopsys Science Fair. While the prospect of further success at the national level is enticing, Movva said the most exciting aspect is the opportunity to meet more students as passionate about research as him. “I’ll get to meet hundreds of my like-minded peers and learn about the best student research being done across the nation,” he said. “Just like the regional symposium, I’ll get to make new friends and meet with professionals to discuss and learn about fascinating topics from all fields of science.”
In February, sixth graders read to their hearts’ content during a read-a-thon in the library. The event was part of an effort to keep sixth graders entertained while grade 7-8 students attended an assembly.
“While the older students watched the upper school dance show, grade 6 students rotated in half-hour shifts through several different activities, one of which was a read-a-thon in the library,” explained Bernie Morrissey, middle school librarian, who organized the successful event.
“The read-a-thon was nothing complicated: just coming to the library, choosing a book and doing some sustained silent reading. Students enjoyed it very much, and some probably would have read for the entire 90-minute period if we had let them. The other activities were arts and crafts in a classroom, and athletic contests in the gym,” he recalled.
David Zhu, grade 9, was recently announced as one of the finalists in the 2013-14 season of the USA Computing Olympiad (USACO). As one of 24 other finalists (out of more than 2,600 initial entrants), Zhu will travel to Clemson University in South Carolina for a summer training camp, during which four of the finalists will be chosen to represent the United States at the 2014 International Olympiad in Informatics.
The finalists were selected after a series of five contests, starting in November of last year, which had students tackling programming problems spanning various techniques and difficulty levels.
Congratulations and best of luck to David Zhu at the summer training camp!
Spring was in the air at the lower school on April 18, as hat-happy kindergartners showed off unique and colorful headwear during the annual Spring Hat Parade and Egg Hunt. On that Friday afternoon, the children proudly wore festive hats they had decorated at home. Marching in a fun parade, the students wound their way through campus, stopping in various classrooms to model their fabulous attire.
Harker enjoyed another successful year at the Synopsys Championship in March, as dozens of middle and upper school students garnered awards.
Five upper school students were named Grand Prize winners, granting them spots at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). Two additional students were named Grand Prize alternates.
Sriram Somasundaram, grade 11, won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Biological Sciences. He was awarded $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation. He also received a First Award in the Biochemistry/Microbiology category.
Junior Andrew Jin also won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Biological Sciences. He received $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation. He also was awarded a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a $100 second place prize from the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, and $75 from Varian Medical Systems. In addition, he received a First Award in the Bioinformatics category.
Another Grand Prize – Best of Championship winner in Biological Sciences was Steven Wang, grade 11. He received $1,000 and a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation, as well as a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a $100 second place prize from the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology, and $75 from Varian Medical Systems. He also received a First Award in Bioinformatics.
Junior Vivek Sriram was named Grand Prize Alternate in Biological Sciences. He also received a First Award in Bioinformatics.
In Physical Sciences, Nitya Mani, grade 11, won a Grand Prize – Best of Championship, as well as a First Award in the Computers/Mathematics category. She also received a Certificate of Achievement from Mu Alpha Theta.
Senior Varun Mohan also won Grand Prize – Best of Championship in Physical Sciences, as well as a First Award in Computers/Mathematics and a Certificate of Achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
Senior Vikas Bhetanabhotla was named a Grand Prize Alternate in Physical Sciences. He also won a First Award in Physics.
In all, 30 upper school students were winners in various categories.
In Botany, Joyce Huang and Neymika Jain, both grade 9, won First Awards.
In Environmental Sciences, grade 9 students Anika Jain, Anuva Mittal and Steven Cao won First Awards. Cao also received a Schonert Award, which came with $100 and a Certificate of Achievement. Tiara Bhatacharya, grade 11, also had success in Environmental Sciences, winning a Second Award.
In Biochemistry/Microbiology, First Awards went to Kshithija Mulam and Alayna Richmond, both grade 9. Anika Gupta, grade 12, received an Honorable Mention.
In Chemistry, Rohith Kuditipudi, grade 11, won a First Award and finalist letter, as well as $50 from San Jose State Student Affiliates of the American Chemical Society. Efrey Noten, grade 12, won a Second Award.
Harker had a total of five winners in Computers/Mathematics. In addition to Mani and Mohan, junior Ankita Pannu received a Fourth Place Student Award from the San Francisco Bay Area professional chapter of the Association for Computing Machinery, which included a certificate and $120. Rishabh Jain, grade 11, and Vineet Kosaraju, grade 10, each received an Honorable Mention from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
In Medicine/Health/Gerontology, junior Neil Movva received a First Award and $100 from the Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering, while freshman Venkat Sankar received a Second Award.
In Earth/Space Sciences, Manan Shah, grade 9, won a First Award and $100 from Trimble Navigation, as well as a certificate of achievement from the American Meteorological Society. In the same category, Zareen Choudhury won a Second Award.
Harker had two winners in the Engineering category. Junior Vamsi Gadiraju received a $100 First Prize from Morgan Lewis, a finalist letter from the Synopsys Outreach Foundation, a $100 First Place Award and certificate from the American Vacuum Society, a $75 Second Place Award from A Society for Materials, a certificate of achievement and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, and a $100 First Place Award from the Society of Vacuum Coaters. Meanwhile, Kailas Vodrahalli, grade 11, won Outstanding Sustainability Project in the Synopsys Championship’s I-SWEEEP contest, as well as an Honorable Mention in the Engineering Category and a certificate and medallion from the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.
In Bioinformatics, junior David Lin earned an Honorable Mention, as well as an iPad Mini and Certificate of Achievement from MedImmune. Vedant Thyagaraj, grade 11, won a Second Award.
Finally, in Physics, junior Leo Yu earned a Second Award.
Harker middle school students also had considerable success. First Awards in Zoology went to Praveen Batra and Michael Kwan, both grade 8, with Sumati Wadhwa, also grade 8, receiving an Honorable Mention. Sohenee Banerjee and Meghana Karinthi, both grade 8, received First Awards in Medicine/Health/Gerontology, with Jerry Chen and Jimmy Lin, both grade 8, receiving Second Awards.
Rajiv Movva, grade 8, was one of two winners in Biochemistry/Microbiology, winning a First Award. The other, eighth grader Anooshree Sengupta, won a Second Award and an Honorable Mention from the Society of Vacuum Coaters.
Harker picked up a pair of wins in Botany, with First Awards going to Anastasiya Grebin and Stephanie Swanson, both grade 8. In Environmental Sciences, eighth graders Aadi Ghildiyal and Sohini Kar received Honorable Mentions.
In Physics, Sushant Thyagaraj, grade 8, took home a Second Award. Fellow eighth grader Shaya Zarkesh won a First Award in Engineering, along with $50 and an Award for Electro-Technology from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
On a windy and cold afternoon at Boulder Ridge Country Club, the boys golf team outdueled four time defending league champion Menlo by one stroke 208-209 to win its first ever title. After the first two pairings, the Eagles were up by seven strokes. On the last hole, Menlo’s William Hsieh, playing on this home course, lips out the par 4 9th. Then Knight senior and medalist Jordan Stone, who sunk 10-15 footers all day long, lips out another putt, finishing with a remarkable 11 putts for the round. Not to be outdone, in front of the gallery, our own Mr. Clutch, Freshman Avi Khemani calmly sank an eight footer for the one shot victory. Freshman Sandip Nirmel, who is playing his best golf of late, led the Eagles with a 3 over par 39. Nirmel earned his first Harker medalist honors last week at Shoreline against Pinewood. Junior Shrish Dwivedi chipped in with a 40, followed by Khemani’s 41, Ryan Vaughan’s 42 and Jonathan Lee’s 46 to assist in the victory. After hitting a ball out of bounds on his first tee shot on the par 4 fourth hole, Jonathan stuck a 220 yard, blind shot, into the middle of the green to save a remarkable double. The Eagles secure first place in the WBAL with a 9-1 record. This is a culmination of 15 weeks of tremendous amount of hard work, time, and effort by all eight of these gentlemen. Please congratulate Shrish Dwivedi, Dakota McNealy, Nikhil Reddy, Ryan Vaughan, Sandip Nirmel, Avi Khemani, Zarek Drozda and Jonathan Lee on this championship run! Each and every one of them played their role in making this dream a reality and absolutely gave it their all. We can’t be more proud. The team’s next competition will be at League Finals next Wednesday. Go Eagles!!!!
April 22, 2014 Golf
The Eagles are off to their best start ever, even after dropping a contest to rival Sacred Heart Prep by just three shots, 186-189. The Eagles are tied for first place in the WBAL with an 8-1 record. In the close loss, sophomore Dakota McNealy led all other golfers with an even par 33.
At the Champions Invitational in Palm Springs earlier this month, the team placed 22nd out of 40 schools in a crowded field that included teams from Texas, Nevada, Washington and Canada. They have a huge showdown with Menlo today!
Track and Field
The Eagles competed in their second league meet, with seniorshot putter Nithya Vemireddy setting a school record. The day also was filled with personal bests. In addition to Vemireddy’s new record, junior shot putter Julia Wang and sophomore Mehul Khetrapal set personal bests in the 400m. Senior Ravi Bhandia, junior Matt Bloch, sophomore Jonathan Hochberg, freshman Davis Howard and senior Rohan Kapatkar had personal bests in throws. The boys went 1-2-3-4 in the high-jump, led by senior Wei Wei Buchsteiner with a school record of 5’2″!
Senior Claudia Tischler and sophomore Alex Dellar ran 1-2 in the 800m, both with season bests, and junior Allen Huang’s personal best in the 100m was the best Eagle mark on of the year! Freshman Niki Iyer placed second in the 3200m run, breaking her old school record at the CCS Top 8 Invitational with a time of 10:57.39 and edging out the third-place finisher in the final 100m. Then, at the San Mateo Bearcat Invitational, Vemireddy and Wang took fifth and sixth place in the discus, with Vemireddy’s personal best throw just 8 inches shy of the school record set last year by Wang. Vemireddy also took sixth in the shot put, while seniors Sean Nachnani, Arjun Kumar, Krish Sanghi and Nishaant Murali set personal bests in the discus. Kumar equaled his personal best 39’9” to take eighth place in the shot put.
Lacrosse
The varsity lacrosse team roared back against Sacred Heart Prep but ultimately fell short, losing 12-9 despite four goals from juniorHannah Bollar, three goals from senior Mary Liu, two goals from seniorMabel Luo and 17 saves from seniorgoalie Christine Lee. The girls bounced back by trouncing York School 14-3 behind four goals from freshmanSarah Baz, three from Liu, two from Luo and one apiece from sophomores Shreya Sunkara and Natasha Mayor, Bollar, freshman Taylor Iantosca and Lee. The girls are now 4-9 overall, and will celebrate their senior day on May 6 when they bid farewell to seniors Alicia Clark, Nikkan Ghosh, Lee, Liu, Luo, Maya Madhavan and Brinda Perumal.
Tennis
The boys varsity squad beat Pinewood and Crystal Springs last week. Their match against Crystal Springs was a tense and heated fight for second place, and the boys prevailed 4-3. This week is a busy one for the team, with four matches! The team will send off senior Kevin Xue at senior day on April 25.
Baseball
The boys crushed Pescadero 11-1 over the break for their second victory of the year. FreshmanNic Bean went 4-4 with a two-run homerun. SophomoreDalton Forbeshad two hits with a triple and an RBI. FreshmanKedar Gupta had two hits, a triple and two RBIs. Senior Varun Kamat pitched a complete game, allowing just one run and three hits while striking out 13 across four innings. The boys play three times this week and host a senior day for Kamat on May 8.
Softball
The Eagles lost to Mercy-Burlingame last week despite hits from juniors Alisa Wakita and Vivian Isenberg. They’ll be back in action today at Blackford against Castilleja.
Volleyball
The boys won the bronze bracket at the Bellarmine Tournament after defeating Cathedral of LA and Nevada Union. They went 3-3 overall at the tournament. Against their league competitors Homestead, they boys fell, dropping their record to 13-7 overall and 4-3 in league. Tonight, they head to Blackford at 6:45 p.m. for a game against Los Gatos. The boys’ senior day is on May 9, where they will send off seniors Samir Chaudhry, Will Deng, Gaurav Kumar, Huck Vaughan, Jithin Vellian, Sean Youn and Andrew Zhu.
Swimming
You can catch the swim team’s senior day on Wednesday at 4 p.m. against rival Sacred Heart Prep. Say goodbye to seniors Brian Tuan, Kenneth Zhang, Manon Audebert and Kimberly Ma.