"Charisma is the intangible that makes people want to follow you, to be around you, to be influenced by you. "
Roger Dawson
“I believe charisma is an attitude,” junior biomedical engineering major Adam Harris stated. To him, this word is somewhat of an elected lifestyle where one allows themself to feel it, live it, embody it. “I live my life with an energy and a compassion that makes other people want to be around me,” he continued.
Harris originally believed he was the face of joy. “That’s the kind of life I want to lead,” Harris stated, “I want to be a person who makes and brings joy into this world.” He admits to stumbling across the word charisma and immediately recognizing it was in fact, a perfect fit.
Upon completing more research, Harris realized charisma boasted a multidimensional meaning. To him, having charisma not only encompassed an attitude of joy, but of kindness, compassion, friendliness, energy, passion and thoughtfulness. This word implied a complexity identity, demonstrating his personality and its multiple dimensions. “I like to have allegiance to a lot of different things,” Harris explained, “I feel like this word allows me to be that, which is something very important to me.”
Harris’s charisma is most evidently showcased through his passion for friends, family, sci-fi series and sagas, the color maroon and moose tracks ice cream. Likewise, this word carries much weight in his future goals and aspirations. As an engineer, Harris hopes to utilize his charismatic nature to develop affordable prosthetics for disabled persons.
He strongly believes lack of financial resource shouldn’t keep individuals from the medical care they need. “There’s a lot of things in this world that are unnecessarily expensive,” he said, “If you find out the right things that come together, then you can make things more cost efficient for everybody.” While keeping this in mind, he also hopes to make prosthetics more adaptable to an individual’s body by utilizing programming to make movement more authentic.
This energetic passion for assisting others is what sets Harris apart from most. It’s why he believes one who truly embodies the word charisma views obstacles as character builders, quarantines as opportunities for self-reflection.
It’s why regardless of his present circumstance he’s determined to, “…continue to be that light.”
It’s because he is the face of CHARISMA.