After graduating from UM-Flint in 2011, I began working on a research project at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, studying human allergic inflammation. Whereas my prior experiences in the military had spurred my interest in the role of inflammation in brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, several important life events occurred during my time at the NIH that greatly expanded that interest and added a sense of urgency to it, and also helped define my personal and professional goals in medicine and research. Made possible through funding provided by the Clarendon Scholarship, I was able to pursue these goals at the University of Oxford and completed an MSc in Neuroscience degree there in September of 2013. I then returned to the NIH to study pre-clinical models of mild traumatic injury and post-traumatic stress disorder. Through all of this, I know that my education, mentoring, and service experiences as a student at UM-Flint have carried me through. Further as a result, I am fortunate to have been accepted into several medical schools, including Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Duke, the University of Chicago, New York University and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and am now trying to decide which would be the best fit for myself and my family. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to everyone at the Department of Public Health and Health Sciences for helping me achieve my lifelong dream of becoming a doctor, a direct result of the UM-Flint difference.