Kian Lari

A Note From Kian: 

I remember starting off freshman year dead set on applying to dental school. I knew I had wanted to go into a profession that challenged me, made me a better person in terms of ability, and gave the privilege of having another’s well-being in my hands. My family comes from a long line of hearts riddled with disease so that was a huge factor pushing me in this direction. Frankly, I thought about this hypothetical situation where I was on a plane and a passenger has a heart attack, and someone rushes over and says, “Is anyone here a doctor?” and then I’d calmly walk over and handle the situation and didn’t think any other profession could do that. Once I decided on it, I knew it was time to set out on bettering myself academically and socially and that meant stepping out of my comfort zone.

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I was accepted into the Honors College at Clemson my Sophomore year and that was just the confidence boost I needed after having a mediocre year in two semesters of general chemistry. I got one semester of an improved GPA under my belt and then made one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my second semester: I picked up my phone, went to the PhiDE website, and called their office. Weeks went by with emails being sent to and fro, and sometimes they were only being sent one way because of some shameless ambition. After a couple months, I had finally proved that I was serious in bringing a chapter to Clemson’s campus. I remember getting the email stating that the CEO, Karen Katz, wanted to schedule a phone interview and that’s just what we did. I shoo’ed my roommate out of our dorm and I spoke to Karen about all the qualifications we’d need.

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Over that summer, I saw that there was ample support for an organization like this. Tons of people had liked a facebook post imploring if anyone would be interested. There were several weeks of my emails going unanswered from the health professions office at Clemson, and professors I had asked to be the advisors who didn’t quite understand what we were trying to start here.

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Eventually, when the Fall semester started again, that’s when the ball really started rolling. We, and by “we” I mean myself and roughly 30 people that were probably at the brink of blocking my email, had our first meeting in the Alumni Center. That’s when I was so incredibly proud, blessed, honored, ecstatic to have our future chapter’s founding executive board elected. We had Boo as president, Brandon as VP of Programming, Elle as VP of Recruiting, Meg serving as VP of Finance, and good ole Ken at Secretary/Risk Manager. We’ve truly been through the trenches together and the level of respect I have for them is second to none. The word, “no” isn’t in their vocabulary and they’re exactly the people that I needed to lift us off the ground and get moving. Every one of us was trained by nationals over two days for over 12 hours and I think I speak for all of us when I say that I’d do it again in a heartbeat and that’s only because we finally saw the fruit of our labor when we inducted our founding class. Each member was more impressive than the last and 79 interviews later, we knew we had something special.

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Time went on with us pre-meds doing our best: new member meetings were held for our colony, exams were grinded for, tears were shed, stress was elevated, but one thing stayed the same, and that was our goal of getting our charter. After having our December 2018 date postponed due to a snowstorm, we knew we really had one other chance to get it right before the academic year was over. And then on February 10th, 2019 we got that charter with every name that made it possible printed right on the front. For my fellow PhiDE’s, I’ve got nothing but love for you and I leave you with this: be there for one another, pick each other up when we’re down, keep each other sane while you study for the MCAT, and know that by us starting what we did our success is inevitable because of each individual that makes up the whole. And for prospective members and onlookers, keep on reading about our stories, and you’ll see how we’re transforming an ordinary pre-med experience at Clemson and making it into something extraordinary.