Campbell High School senior bound for Johns Hopkins to study medicine

May 14—Editor's note: This is part of an annual series in the MDJ spotlighting the county's best and brightest as they graduate high school.

SMYRNA — Overcoming a family tragedy while in middle school, 18-year-old Campbell High School senior Kayla Blosser knew she wanted to study medicine.

Blosser, who holds a 4.75 GPA, fulfills that goal when she attends Johns Hopkins University this fall.

"I wanted the resources of a large school without a high population, allowing for a close-knit community and more personal connections with peers and teachers," she said. "It has a really strong engineering program, awesome reputation, and is just overall a super cool school."

Blosser plans on a career in medicinal chemistry, and will be majoring in chemical and biomolecular engineering. The university says chemical and biomolecular engineering "is dedicated to the study and design of chemical, biological, and physical phenomena, with an ultimate goal of the betterment of society," which is "literally perfection," Blosser said.

Dan Penick, Blosser's English teacher at Campbell, had high praise for his student.

"What makes Kayla truly special is that she makes everyone around her better by raising the level of literary discourse in the classroom," said Penick. "She finds cool connections among such disparate components that her classmates often reach a depth of understanding regarding the interconnectedness of arts, sciences and life that even I can hardly provide."

Penick described her as having a love of learning and unmatched intellectual curiosity.

"I admire the energy she brings to all aspects of her life, particularly student organizations and her community," he said. "Serving for the betterment of those around her is what she genuinely enjoys."

Blosser was a member of the Beta Club, Chorus, Habitat for Humanity, Model UN, International Baccalaureate Leadership Team and the National Honor Society.

She is the daughter of Randy Blosser, a sales manager at Audi Marietta, and Clema Blosser, who was a Spanish teacher at St. Benedict's.

Blosser has known she wanted to be involved in medicine since her mother passed away from cancer while she was in the eighth grade.

"It was really hard for my family, and it made the transition into high school that much scarier," Blosser said. "And then you add on the pandemic, yeah, quarantine was really difficult for me."

Blosser said she started having panic attacks, bad depressive cycles, and an eating disorder all over the course of a year, but with the help of therapy, she was able to heal and thrive.

"I learned about who I really was, how to accept that, and how to become my best self," she said. "Overall, I am a much more confident person and am able to give myself breaks when needed. Plus, I am able to advocate for myself instead of being too scared to ask for help."

Penick commented on how Blosser's reaction to tragedy became the basis for her motivation in school and life.

"She talks openly about studying science and possibly medicine to help find treatments and hopefully cures for cancer because of her mother's experience," Penick said. "We know students and professionals often use personal inspiration to accomplish goals in their lives, but for Kayla, I think it runs deeper than that."

Discussing chemistry, Blosser lights up.

"Medicinal chemistry is literally everything I want to do, developing drugs, synthesis of new chemical substances, studying current medications, and a whole lot of organic chemistry," she said.

Her favorite class was chemistry, but philosophy was a close second.

"Chemistry has always been a top subject for me, ever since elementary school I knew I wanted to be some type of scientist," Blosser said. "I love doing labs. Philosophy literally changes your mind, shifting how you approach certain topics, and teaches you to view everything critically — you cannot take anything for granted. It taught me how to be a stronger writer and arguer, developing my justification skills."

A dedicated student, Blosser said she studied, on average, 15 to 20 hours per week. It paid off. She was awarded a $1,000 Beta Club Scholarship as well as a Johns Hopkins Scholarship, which recurs annually, worth $52,000.

Being in Campbell's International Baccalaureate program provided her with great opportunities to do research and collaborate with friends.

"This program gives you so many opportunities to do personal research, which was literally awesome," she said. "I was never a big group kind of person, but I love the small group of close friends I've made over the past four years. We eat lunch together, choose each other for projects. It's great knowing there's a group of people that really care about me."

Blosser is too excited thinking about her new home in Baltimore to be sad about leaving high school. She has also been too busy studying for IB exams to think of what she'll miss.

"I am trying my best to appreciate the moments," Blosser said. "I'll miss hanging out with my dog."

Her advice to incoming freshmen is to try everything and study hard.

"A lot of my friends struggled their freshman year, because they had been so used to succeeding without studying that they struggled with learning how to study," Blosser said. "Learn how to study and take breaks. You get a lot of extra time as a freshman, so try out a bunch of clubs and activities. You can go to a few meetings and get a feel for it, and then stop showing up if you don't like it. That way you can learn what you genuinely love to do and can stick to that."