Olentangy’s Ushasri has bright future

Olen­tangy High School’s Harini Ushasri

Story and photo by

BRECK J. HAPNER

Out­side of the req­ui­site med­ical knowl­edge, every doc­tor has to be under­stand­ing and above all, giv­ing. A spe­cial­ist such as a pedi­a­tri­cian must have an affin­ity for chil­dren, a spe­cial sense of com­mu­nity and the will­ing­ness to vol­un­teer beyond the call of duty. You’ll find all these qual­i­ties in Olen­tangy High School senior Harini Ushasri.

Harini has spent her high school career help­ing oth­ers while con­sis­tently serv­ing the com­mu­nity and it has been through this ser­vice that she found her call­ing, to some­day become a pediatrician.

A per­fect exam­ple is Harini’s involve­ment in the Olen­tangy Reads pro­gram at Her­itage Ele­men­tary, vol­un­teer­ing to help chil­dren with read­ing and writ­ing skills after school. Harini places a strong empha­sis on the rel­e­vance of read­ing and the entire learn­ing process, she said.

“Read­ing is such an impor­tant thing,” Harini said, “and I really enjoy the chil­dren. They are always so excited to see me and I enjoy help­ing them. I try to make a dif­fer­ence and that’s why I really value com­mu­nity service.”

Harini’s advanced place­ment course load and sheer num­ber of per­sonal, school and com­mu­nity activ­i­ties this year would over­whelm many stu­dents, but she takes it in stride.

“School is going great,” Harini said. “I like my classes, teach­ers and activ­i­ties. I have a very full sched­ule but it is fun.”

Harini’s mul­ti­ple school activ­i­ties include the Ser­vice Club. She has been a mem­ber since her fresh­man year, par­tic­i­pat­ing in var­i­ous events such as Olen­tangy Reads, Bus Patrol and the Trick-or-Treat for Cans cam­paign, where groups of stu­dents can­vas neigh­bor­hoods around the area col­lect­ing can goods for Peo­ple In Need (PIN). In Decem­ber, Ser­vice Club mem­bers help dis­trib­ute the food col­lected at the Delaware County Fair­grounds dur­ing PIN’s Hol­i­day Clear­ing House.

With the group Teen Advo­cates, Harini works to endorse drug and alco­hol pre­ven­tion through­out the school and community.

“I favor National Red Rib­bon Week, pro­mot­ing drug and alco­hol aware­ness. The focus is about mak­ing good choices,” Harini said.

In National Honor Soci­ety (NHS), Harini’s ser­vice events include the December/January Red Cross blood drive, the Jan­u­ary Good­will clothes drive and fundrais­ing for the Cys­tic Fibro­sis Foun­da­tion May walk. Harini also engages in peer tutor­ing through NHS and the Olen­tangy study hall coordinator.

“I enjoy teach­ing stu­dents and I’m told I do a good job explain­ing things,” Harini said with a laugh. “It is a good feel­ing to help oth­ers. Tutor­ing also enables me see things in a dif­fer­ent way, allow­ing me to learn more in my own classes.”

Harini cur­rently plays vio­lin in the Cham­ber Orches­tra. She has played the instru­ment since fourth grade and has per­formed all four years she has attended Olen­tangy. As an Orches­tra Pub­lic­ity Offi­cer, Harini works to adver­tise events per­tain­ing to the Main, Cham­ber and Fresh­man Orches­tras. She cre­ates fliers and helps make orches­tra event mar­ket­ing com­mer­cials for the school video news.

“I coor­di­nate with the other Lead­er­ship Team mem­bers to improve the orches­tra pro­gram,” Harini said.

Olen­tangy High School Orches­tra Direc­tor Michelle Moss said Harini works very hard as a sec­ond vio­lin sec­tion leader and is eager to pro­mote the Cham­ber Orchestra.

“Harini is dri­ven, patient, com­pas­sion­ate, suc­cess­ful and full of ideas,” Moss said. “She cares about doing well in all that she does. Above all, Harini is kind and meets every day with a smile.”

It was dur­ing her tenure vol­un­teer­ing for the Ser­vice Club-sponsored Her­itage Ele­men­tary Bus Patrol that Harini came to an epiphany. Due to a daily sched­ul­ing alter­ation, chil­dren were falling asleep on the bus and miss­ing their assigned stops. Stu­dents were asked to police the weary kinder­garten­ers and Harini signed up.

“The kids were always excited when I was there,” Harini said. “After a year of work­ing with the chil­dren, I dis­cov­ered I really enjoyed it and the kids really liked me. It was then I began con­sid­er­ing attend­ing med­ical school for pediatrics.”

Olen­tangy High School Chem­istry teacher Marc Ehrhardt nom­i­nated Harini for the United States Achieve­ment Acad­emy National Sci­ence Award, which she won, call­ing her one of the most car­ing and kind indi­vid­u­als he has taught.

“Harini donates so much of her time and energy to oth­ers while achiev­ing so much in the class­room,” Ehrhardt said. “She is the type of stu­dent that pro­vides a role model for others.”

Out­side school, Harini com­ple­ments her bur­geon­ing inter­est in the med­ical field by vol­un­teer­ing at Powell’s Bharatiya Hindu Tem­ple health clinic, pop­u­lated by local Indian doc­tors offer­ing free check­ups. Harini works at the recep­tion desk, help­ing patients fill out reg­is­tra­tion forms and enter­ing infor­ma­tion into the clinic’s database.

“I have talked with the tem­ple doc­tors about the pro­fes­sion,” Harini said, “and this expe­ri­ence has sup­ple­mented my desire to enter the med­ical field.”

Harini’s other activ­i­ties include Indian clas­si­cal dance at the Nalanda School. For seven years, she has stud­ied the Bharatanatyam style. The school par­tic­i­pates in com­pe­ti­tions and per­forms via cul­tural pro­grams offered at the Indian, Asian and Inter­na­tional Fes­ti­vals. She also dances at fundrais­ers for local groups, rais­ing money for Indian schools and other var­i­ous charities.

“I love danc­ing,” Harini said. “It is a great way to express your­self. The hand motions and move­ments are all very graceful.”

Harini also takes Indian clas­si­cal vocal lessons, per­form­ing for local cul­tural events and reli­gious ser­vices occur­ring at the Bharatiya Hindu Tem­ple. Per­haps closer to Harini’s heart is her Hindu scrip­tural class, teach­ing chant­ing of the Vedas, the Hindu scriptures.

“I am a spir­i­tual per­son,” Harini said. “The scrip­tural class helps to ground me in my reli­gion, bring­ing me closer to God.”

Accepted by both Ohio State Uni­ver­sity and the Uni­ver­sity of North Car­olina Chapel Hill for under­grad­u­ate stud­ies in biol­ogy, Harini looks for­ward to embark­ing on her med­ical career. She is espe­cially inter­ested in study­ing prob­lems with the endocrine sys­tem, catch­ing dis­eases in child­hood before they man­i­fest in adulthood.

“My inter­est started with my mom, who suf­fers from migranes, pre-diabetes and thy­roid prob­lems,” Harini said. “She kept telling me she prob­a­bly had these dis­eases as a child, spark­ing my inter­est in this under-researched field. I am fas­ci­nated by inter­nal med­i­cine and how a child’s body works.”

Of the many acco­lades Harini has gar­nered, she val­ues her Advanced Place­ment (AP) Scholar With Dis­tinc­tion awards most. Harini has taken five AP exams over the past two years and has achieved the high­est score four times.

Harini is excited about attend­ing under­grad­u­ate school and ven­tur­ing out into a larger society.

“I am going to miss my friends as we are all going to dif­fer­ent places,” Harini said, “but I am ready to explore the world. I will also miss high school and I’m try­ing to avoid seniori­tis. I’m not going to let it get to me. I’m excited to be mov­ing on. It’s a nice feeling.”

Harini is the daugh­ter of Usha and Sreed­har Rao of Lewis Center.

Posted by Breck Hapner on Feb 8 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.