A CRITIC from a Washington newspaper once wrote, after hearing one of Mia's performances, that she showed "sensitivity, intellect, and a sense of the divine."

There's more truth in that than the critic himself may have realized. For Mia, her faith in God is what drives her career. "I play to glorify God," she says, and she believes that her talent is a gift from God to be used to serve Him. In a place as widely agnostic and cynical as Harvard, Mia's candid, sincere faith seems unusual and even refreshing.

"I personally believe that you need a strong internal goal to pursue this kind of a lifestyle [as a musician] or these goals because after you die, it's over. What do you live for? Do you live for the applause or something that's very temporal? Is it fame or money? That doesn't serve the art or anything greater.

"Of course, pleasing the audience is important, but after a while, your body and mind become exhausted. There's got to be a resource that constantly pushes you through the day to day practices. And God and Christ are the sources of strength for me."

So the piano was a gift from her parents, but the ability to play, for Mia, is a gift from God.

HER HARVARD EXPERIENCE, Mia believes, has been a good one, and certainly hasn't held back her musical career. Rosen Professor of Music Leon Kirchner, who has taught Mia in a few classes, says Mia is a "very talented pianist," and "depending on her work and luck, she should do quite well as a professional pianist."

While she has no doubts about her decision to attend Harvard, Mia does believe that there is room for improvement. In particular, she criticizes the lack of emphasis Harvard puts on performing arts in general and in music in particular. "I think Harvard likes to take a strictly academic and intellectual approach to things, not an applied approach."

She cites the Visual and Environmental Studies Department as the one field of study in which Harvard has broken its strictly academic attitude, and she says she thinks the Music Department could follow suit without compromising its intellectual and academic standards.

At the risk of sounding totally treasonous, she says, "Yale has been a fine example of the combination of hard-core academics and performing arts. They are a shining example for us, hopefully, to follow." Mia is, in fact, putting her money where her mouth is, as she will head to Yale this fall to begin work on a master's degree in performing arts.

And after that?

"I hope to have some recording contracts down, and go touring with European and American symphonies across the world," she says.

And keep on sharing her gift from God.