All Hans on Deck

Hans Mikkelsen ’06 picks up the slack where Harvard has dropped the ball.

The College woefully lacks a geography department but, luckily for entrywaymates and anyone who has ever played the ‘where are you from’ game with Mikkelsen, a geography lesson follows any exchange of pleasantries.

Mikkelsen hails from the Faroe Islands, population 48,000, and he rattles off the Faroe lowdown with the ease of someone who regularly must enlighten the geographically challenged: Yes, it is its own country—but unfortunately not yet a state (it was colonized by Denmark and has never fully seceded from it)—comprised of 18 islands located between Iceland and Scotland. It may be loosely considered part of Scandinavia. Indeed, Mikkelsen fits the blond-haired, clear-blue-eyed, fair-skinned stereotype and speaks Danish and English fluently in addition to Faroese—ironic, because he feels passionately about the Faroe Islands’ independence movement from Denmark, and applied to Harvard partly because it is not in Copenhagen or anywhere else in Denmark.

Mikkelsen describes the Faroe Islands as a “small, provincial” place where everyone knows each other. His acceptance to Harvard vaulted him to semi-celebrity status there, and not only did he make the front pages of the two national newspapers, he also landed a contract with one to write periodic essays. The fame also served him well with the ladies in Faroese nightclubs. “Expectations for my performance in life rose exponentially” he says of life post-Harvard acceptance.

Other fun Faroese trivia: the Islands has no legal drinking age. “I have a natural relationship with alcohol,” Mikkelsen acknowledges. Luckily, he is 21, and conducts himself age-appropriately. The three-year age gap between him and the majority of the freshman class is due to the 13-grade Faroe Islands education system, which enrolls seven-year-old first-graders, and to the year off Mikkelsen took in order to survey the electorate, perform political analyses and take courses at the University of Copenhagen. Despite his interest in politics, he intends to concentrate in economics, continue on to Harvard Business School and work in an international environment before returning to the Faroe Islands and possibly scaling its political ladder.

For now, Mikkelsen is content with Harvard. He is pleased that he has not yet met any of the “self-important, snotty, rich kids” he had feared, and says he is enjoying his opportunities both academic and social. “Don’t be fooled by the fact I’m 21,” he adds. “I still think about life like an 18-year-old male American college student.”