Alumni Board Scholar Profile: Q&A with 2013 scholar Jordan Rudman

Members of the Boettcher Scholar Alumni Board are interviewing their fellow Boettcher Scholars to help the community get to know one another better. The following Q&A was compiled by Boettcher Scholar Gergana Kostadinova.

Scholar Year: 2013
Hometown: Denver
College(s), Degree(s), and Graduation Year(s): Colorado College, molecular biology major, music minor, graduating 2017

What are you currently interested in pursuing after graduating?

I’ll be applying to medical school this summer, to begin in the fall of 2018. I’m interested in pursuing emergency medicine, but I’m certainly open to other possibilities as well. In the meantime, I’ll be moving back to Denver where I hope to continue working as an EMT in either a hospital emergency department or with a local ambulance company. Additionally, I hope to continue my musical hobbies: playing jazz piano and singing.

Tell us about what activities, groups, and/or organizations you have joined in college and why you joined them.

I’ve been in far too many music ensembles: choir, jazz combo, and Balinese Gamelan, to name a few. I have appreciated the opportunity to pursue music along with my pre-medicine studies; I hope to always have that balance in my life. I also help run CC’s student EMS squad. We respond to medical emergencies on campus and provide education and training opportunities in pre-hospital medicine. It’s been extremely rewarding to help lead an organization of students caring for other students.

Tell us about an important mentor you have had.

I had a middle school teacher, David, who would play geography trivia with me on the school bus ride to soccer practice. He saw me for exactly who I was and taught me to embrace it; for that I will always be extremely grateful. I no longer play soccer, but I still love trivia.

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

When playing in a jazz band: listen more than you play. As someone who is very comfortable talking, that’s been an important lesson and one that I’ve found vastly improves many aspects of my life.

If you could have dinner with one person or a few people from history, whom would you choose and why?

Dr. Oliver Sacks. He was the most beautiful embodiment of an artistic scientist.