Rachel Louise Taylor CSHM Class of 2024 This Is How I Am Far Beyond Driven Being Rachel Taylor takes many pieces to puzzle me together. These pieces make me who I am, which is my passion for a multitude of activities. Being me is to love special effects makeup, practicing, and researching for years accumulating knowledge on this cryptic and horrific art. Another art in which I am passionate for is aerial arts, performing six feet up in front of crowds expressing my love for the music and my ability to contort to the production which I have been working on for years with intense pressure on my body and mind. My fixations don't stop with these, they continue through my enthusiasm for my vocation of Altar Serving, within the Catholic church, my fierce ambition for success within my academic career which I have greatly achieved at Cantwell Sacred Heart of Mary holding many titles including a continuous Summa Cum Laude status and a 4.5 GPA, National Honors Society member, being an LA Archdiocese Christian Service Award Recipient, adventures with my loved ones, finding new experiences that allow me to appreciate new knowledge and getting caught in a mosh with my lust for metal music. I grew up in a family with an appreciation for all music but with an infatuation with metal. I was raised in the pit, so metal isn't just a genre of music I like but it is a part of me that has been with me since childhood, supporting me through the difficult times yet also empowering me with the joy it brings with every riff and breakdown. Evolving from falling asleep to Shroud of Urine by Exodus at a young age like a lullaby, to watching Gary Holt, five feet away in the pit of The House of Blues with some of my closest friends and family, metal is a piece of me; it pumps through my veins and arteries. I have met people who have encouraged my every desire solely because we met in the pit bonding by blood with metal. Metal is bound within my obsessions as it flows through everything I do. My academic goals are ambitious. I hope to get into college to study Forensic Sciences. Forensic Science especially focusing on crime scene investigation intrigues me to the core. The crime scene is where the secrets are unfolded. Studying the autopsy for suspicious factors as well as outside factors that can be found within the body or even the blood spatter is an enticing science that I want to delve into deeper. Both USC and East Los Angeles College hold fascinating curriculums which I may study through for four exceptional years. Following these years, my goal is to work for a team in which I can investigate the crime scene and file autopsy reports to produce answers and solutions using the biomedical understanding I will obtain from my extensive education. Working on a force to uncover the formula behind the scenes, acknowledging every piece with the aid of forensic and biomedical research practices. With my determined goals comes great expense. I plan to pay for my education with savings from my personal accounts as well as my inheritance my father has left me. These would pay for a decent amount of my tuition along with books and other necessities. With this, I will be using money from the changed income I will have from working and support from savings. The Headbang for Science scholarship would allow me to further my education allowing me to study the science I am truly passionate about, blood spatter analysis and an investigation fit for an autopsy, dissecting a crime scene through forensic and biomedical science. This foundation is truly made for a student like me, a student who has a desire to extend their knowledge to have the opportunity to become the scientist or Forensic Scientist they are driven to be all while having a deep passionate love for metal.