By Emery Curtis

Graphics Editor

After moving 18 times around California, senior Julia Lukcow describes her life as a “melting pot” with each place introducing new people, styles, and sounds. “What I wore, who I hung out with, what I listened to, it all changed depending on where I was. And I liked that.” Because of this, Luckow has many creative outlets and interests, including skating, wrestling, fixing bikes, and drawing. 

Julia’s roots trace back to San Francisco, where she lived for seven years. The city’s culture sparked her love for skating, music, and art. “Once you scratch the surface with skating, everything else falls into place,” she said. “It leads you to new brands, old home videos, and music that becomes the soundtrack to your life.” 

Julia started wrestling not for the spotlight but for the accountability it offered. “I was already wired to be focused and independent,” she explains. “Wrestling didn’t give me discipline, it just gave me the space to use it.” She loved the all-or-nothing aspect of the sport. With no one to blame but herself on the mat, Luckow found a deeper motivation through this sport that has helped her succeed in her academics, her job, and overall life. 

She admitted that she only had her bike as a form of transportation. “It’s how I used to get anywhere,” she said. But when one of the gears got caught, she decided to buy a cheap bike manual book to try and figure it out herself. “Once I read that book, I was all in,” she recalled, “I took my bike apart, rebuilt it, and even turned it into a fixie to cut weight.” After that, she started to get interested in the mechanics of how everything works. “I just really like understanding the process and making things work better.” The same mindset of taking things apart and understanding the system drew Luckow to finance. She is headed to Syracuse University in the fall, where she plans to join the student-run hedge program and pursue a career in asset management. Finance and asset management appeal to Julia in the same way skating or bikes do, because it’s in-depth, “Just like with skating or bikes, I want to dig deep. That’s how I understand things, by doing them.” 

Graffiti art started as a shared interest with her friends, something to pass the time. “I just draw whatever looks cool, there’s really no message behind it,” she stated. But when her great-grandmother passed, Luckow found a deeper meaning in the art she made through her ceramics projects for NUMU. She crafted a series of three pots inspired by her great-grandmother and Talavera pottery, which she kept around the house. Luckow passed down her pots to the women in her family: her mother, younger sister, and grandmother. “It helped me understand my grief, and I saw it as a way to connect across generations,” she said. Although Luckow’s path in life is not a straight line, for her, that is the whole point. Every twist and turn has added something new.