Leila was born and raised in Iran till she was 19 and moved to Toronto with her family in 2013. At the time, she barely knew any English, so she spent a year to learn English. She did her undergraduate degree at York University in Biomedical science and graduated in 2019. During her undergrad, she developed a great interest in research and decided to take a full-year honors thesis course to study the effect of two chemotherapy drugs on the separation of chromosomes during cell division in Crane fly spermatocytes. After moving to Canada, unfortunately, Leila's mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. The cancer journey and being her mom's primary caregiver gave Leila the opportunity to spend many hours in the hospitals and that was when she became passionate about medicine. Leila's undergrad GPA was great, but she struggled with the CARS section of MCAT. After evaluating her options, she decided to apply to DO schools in the US. In the fall of 2019, Leila got accepted into Kansas City University (class of 2024) and started pursuing her dream. Leila would love to share her experience with other students who are in the same shoes and are interested in studying osteopathic medicine in the US.