Senior Sheena Harris negates stereotypes.
The Dallas native is not your typical big, tall, blonde, Texas cheerleader.
Her small stature (she's barely five feet tall) masks her huge ambition and place on campus. She runs a magazine and plans one of the biggest campus events of the year - all while preparing for life as a doctor.
The self-proclaimed "science nerd," who is pre-med and a bio-psychology major, is very creative. She loves to read and write, and she is the editor-in-chief of the University's only poetry magazine, Optimus Prime.
Harris became involved with the magazine by submitting her own poems, and eventually "started helping with layouts and moved up to editor-in-chief," she says. "It's a great little magazine - I love it."
Harris is also an avid music lover and is co-chair of Concert Board for the second semester in a row. "It was intimidating at first because we have such an enormous budget and such an enormous responsibility to provide for the Tufts student body," she says of planning Spring Fling and other musical events on campus.
"But it's really rewarding," she says. "It's especially interesting right now because I feel like our peers are becoming more involved with the music scene than ever before, in that they're really starting to explore outside the mainstream."
In preparation for the future, the ambitious senior spent six weeks this summer in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia, working at several hospitals.
"I had always wanted to visit Mongolia because I heard a lot about it when I was younger," Harris said. "My grandfather used to do business there, so when I was looking at programs of where to go, it seemed like it was a good opportunity, because I would never get a chance to go there again."
Harris flew to Mongolia in June, with zero knowledge of the native language, and moved in with a local family. "The [family] did not speak any English and I really didn't speak any Mongolian when I got there, but it made me learn Mongolian at least to a very rudimentary level," Harris says.
She began work at a few different hospitals in the capital, shadowing and assisting doctors. "I was working at a general hospital and in the maternity ward, and I did a variety of things in the hospital - whether it was helping out with menial tasks during operations or generally shadowing different surgeons," Harris says.
She gave the doctors and nurses English lessons. "They were very eager to learn English and happy to have someone to converse with," she says.
Harris was shocked at the poor conditions of the hospitals. There was a general lack of proper equipment and materials, and their practices differed greatly from those performed in Western hospitals.
"It was a good experience, but harrowing, seeing the lack of equipment and some of the techniques that would never occur in the West," Harris says.
Besides aiding in delivering newborn babies in the maternity ward, Harris often watched doctors perform surgery. "I got to see a lobotomy on the left lung - seeing the fact that they were performing this really intricate operation in such primitive settings was so surreal," she says.
The adventures are not over for Harris. "I want to take a year off before med school and continue the type of work I did in Mongolia. It was such an invaluable experience," Harris says. "I want to travel and explore new places, but to continue working and learning at the same time."
