When I think about how I got here—a first-year medical student at the University of Colorado—I can’t separate it from always being a little different, a little wild, and a whole lot driven. I grew up in the northwoods of Minnesota, not far from where Bob Dylan made his stake, but let’s just say that’s not what my carpenter dad and waitress mom were playing in the car. My earliest backseat memories? Headbanging to Toxicity by System of a Down, car seat barely buckled. That early indoctrination soon became a full-blown baptism: Slayer, Obituary, Slipknot, Municipal Waste, Cannibal Corpse, Deftones. My dad taught me how to cut a Slayer stencil and tag it on every notebook, tree, and tackle box in sight. We didn’t have much—lower middle class, hard-working—but what we lacked in money, we made up for with good movies, great tunes, and family bonfires by the lake, burning CDs into memories. They threw me into the pit at Knotfest at 13. I didn’t flinch—I thought, “Oh yeah. This is excellent.” In high school, I realized science is pretty metal. Nature is brutal, strange, beautiful—just like the music. I dove deep: physics, biology, chemistry. I enrolled at the University of Minnesota in 2017 with no roadmap. No one in my family had gone to college, let alone into science or medicine. But as Pantera once roared: “Be yourself, by yourself.” I paid my way through with scholarships, summer jobs, and relentless grit. Senior year, I juggled 50-hour workweeks and med school applications, staying up late writing essays with Chi by Korn in my ears and Knocked Loose in the background. Metal grounded me through every test, every failure, every win. It was also how I stayed close to my family. We didn’t always talk much, but we always had metal. It was the foot in the door after a hard day, the reason for my parents to drive four hours to visit. It reminded me who I am and why I keep going. When I got into med school, I had a mini identity crisis. Tattoos from neck to toe. A head full of riffs. I looked around and thought, “Am I the only metalhead here?” But then I remembered: I’ve always been on the fringe of pop culture. I’ve always stood with the outliers—the blue collar kids, the weirdos, the ones who don’t always feel seen in medicine. Now, I’m part of CU’s Rural Medicine Track, training to serve communities just like the one I came from. One day, I hope to be the doc who convinces the town’s old rockers to finally get their cholesterol checked—maybe while bonding over Iron Maiden. This scholarship wouldn’t just help me stay focused and supported in one of the most intense and expensive phases of my life—it would be a tribute to the music and the people who raised me. Medical school costs more than a signed Pantera cassette (don’t ask my dad; his got stolen in the '90s), and it’s about as easy as breathing in a Cannibal Corpse pit. But what keeps me pushing is the fire this music lit in me—the belief that someone like me belongs here. That a kid with Slayer notebooks and Slipknot dreams can grow up to be a doctor for the people who don’t feel like anyone ever really listens to them. Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire. Give me the chance to keep pushing boundaries—of science, of medicine, of what a doctor is supposed to look like. Because metal gave me my voice. And now, I use it to advocate for the unheard.