La Jolla Country Day is made up of so many talented young individuals, from athletes to artists to scholars. While we do our best to celebrate each other’s achievements, some tend to fall under the radar, so I interviewed a couple of students to shed light on the impressive accomplishments they’ve worked for. Victoria Huang and Joshua Hangartner are two humanities-driven students who both recently won prestigious awards, their work standing out among thousands of contestants.
Vicki is an esteemed writer. She is a California Arts Scholar, Scholastic Silver National Medalist, two-time Scholastic Gold Key Winner, New York Times 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest runner-up, and most recently, a YoungArts winner for 2024. She likes to write about herself and the people in her life, as well as emotions, saying, “I feel a lot of things so it’s good to put it down on paper to make such a fleeting, abstract thing tangible.”
Joshua is also an incredible writer with a particular interest in history. His ideas about human convergence and globalization made him the winner of the 2023 World Historian Student Essay Competition, and he also won the New York Times 6th Annual Student Podcast Contest for his discussion of anti-Asian racism in Europe.
Even though Vicki has won multiple awards for her writing, she still notes that she is always surprised, and of course happy, when she wins time and time again. She draws her inspiration from people just like her- writers. “Reading the work of other writers inspires me so much because it’s like unfolding a piece of their brain and taking a look inside with a magnifying glass,” she says. Vicki finds the relationship between writing and vulnerability very powerful and that writing publicly puts the author’s inner thoughts and feelings on display. This is what attracts her to submitting her pieces to these contests and having other people read them, saying, “It lets me… just not care about peoples’ perception[s] of me because I’m just on full blast all the time.”
Joshua entered his contests because he had free time and ideas for the prompts, and he was intrigued by the prospect of a cash prize and invitation for membership in the World History Association. He was excited to try something new but never expected to win. “I think I’m most proud of the New York Times award,” he says. “Thousands of students submitted for the award and, listening to previous winners, a lot of who[m] layered different audios and interviewed experts, I didn’t feel like [I] really stood a chance.” In his podcast, he chose to discuss a particularly heavy topic, anti-Asian racism. Being Korean American, Joshua finds value in connecting with his Asian culture- he has been immersed in it through trips to Korea and currently runs the Korean Culture Club- and felt that discussing something where his voice “carries some weight” would shed light on something we don’t often hear about. He wanted to share his ideas, jokingly saying: “I spend a lot of time thinking. I feel like everyone does, though, so I’m not special in that sense, but I have a lot of ideas. My ideas can be pretty complex, [but] when I’m able to articulate those ideas and see other people understand them, it’s really satisfying and rewarding.”
Joshua didn’t tell anyone that he took part in these contests and received no help with his actual writing, but he gives a lot of credit to a couple of his history teachers who taught him the bulk of his knowledge. “I could never have completed the World History essay without Mr. Kullens and Dr. Halloran,” he emphasizes.
Similarly, Vicki also notes that many people help her along her creative process. Having others read and constructively critique one’s writing is often a valuable tool to improve and gain new perspectives, and she capitalizes on this, mentioning that it is a crucial part of her process. She has others listen to her read her work, such as her friends from the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, the top summer writing program for high school students that she attended. Vicki also reads other authors’ works for inspiration when she has writer’s block, and she is grateful to get “amazing feedback” from peers and abundant support from her teachers.
Joshua and Vicki, two of many incredible scholars at Country Day, have made some amazing accomplishments in the humanities world. They deserve nothing less! Congratulations to both of them.
Some of their works can be viewed or listened to with these links:
Joshua:
The New York Times 6th Annual Student Podcast Contest
2023 World Historian Student Essay Competition
Vicki:
The New York Times 100-Word Personal Narrative Contest
Scholastic Poems
