My name is Johan Harris, and I am from Loveland, OH. I am an incoming freshman at OSU and am majoring in Biochemistry. My hopes have been to become a pediatrician in the past, but those are quickly being challenged and altered, perhaps for a future in research or material science. Throughout high school, I enjoyed science, but AP Chemistry really showed me the incredible potential of the atom and my teacher’s passion really convinced me to major in biochemistry.
Sports, on the other hand, have always been a passion for me. I played soccer until middle school, when I realized I enjoyed tennis a lot more, and the feeling of having complete control of my own destiny as the only player on the court. Though I still follow soccer closely, tennis immediately impacted my life. I spent four years on the high school varsity team, many hours spent at the Club at Harpers Point, and got the opportunity to see the world’s best play every summer at the Western and Southern Open just twenty minutes from our house. I also worked at my club as a children’s tennis instructor, and a receptionist since the summer after sophomore year.
I am also proud to say I am bilingual, and a dual-citizen. My mom is from Denmark, and she taught me and my brothers how to speak Danish simply by speaking it to us from the second we were born. I am fluent, and hope to spend some time on study abroad in Denmark to utilize and further develop my language skills, like learning to read and write danish even better than I am able to now. We have traveled to Denmark every summer to visit my mom’s family there, and some of my best memories are of parties we have had at my grandparents’ house with all of our cousins playing soccer in the backyard.
While at OSU I hope to continue tennis by being on the club team, and hopefully finding ways to get involved at the Wexner Medical center or in research labs. I know that I will have to go out and find what interests me most, and OSU will be a great place to do exactly that. I am really looking forward to being an Ohio State Buckeye, and continuing my exploration of the potential in the building blocks of the universe.