Hi my name is Sarah. I am a mom of two my daughter being five and my son being one. I am currently enrolled at Chamberlain for my bachelors in nursing. Never did I think this would be my future career. I say that because my mom has been a nurse before I was even born and she would joke around that I would turn green the moment she brought up a story from work. I fell in love with nursing though from working in a local emergency department as a registrar. I realized how important it even in the small acts of service in nursing make such a huge impact on how the patient feels. Such as turning a pillow to the other side so the patient feels the cool side of it. We know how good that feels to us even when we are feeling our absolute best, so I cannot even begin to imagine how good that feels to someone who is laying in a hospital bed. A way I made a positive impact on my community through servitude all started out through a job. I took a job at health care center that helped low income, people with no insurance, and immigrants who needed regular routine healthcare. It was an extremely rewarding job. Just being able to help people who had no teeth get a set of dentures for completely free and see how much that changed their lives. While working there I had gotten into couponing. I was a single mother to one at the time and I had to make ends meet and couponing sure helped it. I realized how much you could get for free and or for pennies. Working there I realized how people could not even afford the basic items to care for themselves. I realized in that moment that I had stockpiles of items that could really make a difference in my community. I had items such as laundry detergent, toothpaste, toothbrushes, diapers, wipes, body wash, shampoo, and so on. We ended up making a closet that when people came for appointments if they needed items they were able to take anything that they needed. I ended up learning how to coupon makeup while that may not seem important to others, for people in those situations it made such a difference. It made them feel good about themselves and feel like they were important too. The things we take granted for in every day life can make the world of difference to someone else and we need to remember that in life how important is to help others and serve them because we are blessed compared to others.

I want to pursue a career in nursing because I truly believe I can make a difference. I grew up with my mom being a registered nurse and hearing her say to never forget the little things in life. She said while you have to take care of very serious issues in nursing that to never forget to take care of the small things as well. One of those small things was flipping a pillow to the cool side of a patient and seeing the comfort they received from that one action. In also remembering the small things in life, I believe that I can make a huge difference when it comes to being a nurse. When it comes to contributing to my community as a nurse, I feel like I could be very strong at this do to previously working at a health center that helped low income community members receive healthcare. While as nurses we know how important it is to take care of your health, we may not realize that not everyone is able to take care of their health due to various reasons. While working at this low income health center I realized how even the little things are important. I learned how to coupon and would donate items such as toothpaste, toothbrushes, deodorant, shampoo, body wash, and so on. These are basic necessities to being able to care for ones health. I realized when working front desk that this encouraged people to come in because they were not shameful of not feeling well taken care of because they knew we would help. As a nurse I feel like I could help out even more. In the area I live in there is a high number of Hispanic/Latino immigrants. They tend to not reach out to receive medical treatment always in the fear of their status. By being able to have this training as nurse, being able to advise them as a nurse, and reassure them that the hospital or medical facility is not going to report their status they are there to help them that I can help the lack of healthcare in the community I live in. Being married to man who has family members who are in these situations I realized in the importance of being able to help them find these community resources. That way we can lower the amount of medical emergencies that could have been prevented by routine care.

Growing up I never saw myself becoming a nurse. My mom has been a nurse since before I was born. When she used to come home and tell us about her day she would tease that I would turn green in the face from hearing about the details. Due to that becoming a nurse never really crossed my mind when I was trying to decide what I wanted to do in life. I decided to become an esthetician and finished with the certificate when I was twenty-two. I then had my daughter when I was twenty-three. I knew the relationship I was in was not healthy so I decided to to get a job working at the local emergency department working at the front desk. They told me when I started that I would either be able to handle what I saw or I would quit within the first week there. I ended up falling in love with nursing working there. It was a shock because I always thought that I would never be able to handle anything like this. I got to see hands on what nurses do and it amazed me. I still did not take the step to become a nurse yet. The partner I was with at the time was not supportive of it at all. I ended up kicked out in the middle of the night in winter. My daughter and I were just in our pajamas and unable to take anything with us. I was luckily able to go to my mothers house that night. While I enjoyed my job at the emergency department I knew I needed to support my daughter and myself better. I decided to take the risk and just start to take prerequisites at my local community college. After two years I finally applied for nursing school at Chamberlain University. I wanted to get my bachelors and my local community college only offered an associates degree. I liked that the program was accelerated so I could better my daughter and I's life sooner. The best part I think of nursing would be doing the little things to help your patient. Such as flipping the pillow to the other side so the patient feels the coolness of it. Working at registration even running to get the patient a blanket or giving them a cup of water when the nurses said that was fine, made a huge difference in how the patient felt. It is the little things when it comes to nursing. I think it is important to remember that it is not always the big things it is the little things as well.

In December of 2020, my daughter, who was 2, and I were kicked out of the house I shared with my daughters father. It was 10:00pm at night and all we had on were our pajamas, he would not let me take anything else with me at the time. Looking back it I honestly thought my life was over. I luckily had my moms house to go but this was still shattering to me. I did not have any type of higher education and I was making a little bit over minimum wage as a Registrar at a local ER. I knew then there was no way I could give my daughter the life I wanted with just that. Whenever I talked to my daughters father when we were together about going back to school, I was ridiculed. I decided to take a leap of faith and start doing prerequisites at a local community college. Since it was still a high time of covid in my area, a lot of my classes were online. My daughter would sit on my lap and color, while I wrote notes. I was single mom working 12 hour shifts at a non profit doctors office at that time that just paid slightly better than my old ER job. It was then time to apply to my local community college nursing program and I got denied. That was soul crushing. I remember crying and wondering if nursing school was the right fit for me. It was hard to get into only 25 seats that semester. I then did not let that deter me I started to look at schools in the surrounding area and decided that even if it was a private school and it was more expensive that it would be worth it. This is my dream. So now I drive an hour each way to get to school. I believe that no matter the set backs in life that I will continue to push through due to my determination in becoming a nurse. When it comes to pediatric nursing I think that me being a single mother can help relate to the mother who is doing it by herself, if she is in fact single. I have experienced having to rush a sick child to the doctors and only having myself to fall back on. I think that even though this field can be hard to work in, that no matter what if these children go through, then I go in being the best nurse I can possibly be. Children will always make you want to be the best version of yourself you can and I feel like we have a lot to learn from them in so many ways as an adult.

As a child I never saw myself becoming a nurse. My mother has been one for over thirty years. I hated hearing about different medical situations that were happening at her job when I was younger. It always made me extremely nauseous. My mother thought it was funny because she said she was not even telling us the worst of the worst. I became a single mom in 2020 after leaving a toxic relationship due to wanting my daughter to grow up with better examples of what a partner should be like. I was working as a registrar in the ER when I left my daughters father. This is where I fell in love with nursing. I got to see first hand some of the worst trauma that can happen in someones life. I wanted to do more than just what I was doing at the front desk. When I was with my daughters father, I was ridiculed for wanting to go back to school. He always claimed it would be a waste of money and I was not smart enough. I already did one of the scariest things for me to do, which was starting over and leaving her father. This encouraged me to take another leap of faith and go back to a local community college. Due to covid at the time a lot of my classes were online and my daughter would sit on my lap while I attended lecture virtually. It was hard but I kept going knowing that I was doing what was best for myself and more importantly my daughter. I knew from the beginning that pediatric nursing is where I would want to end up. With being close to some of the best pediatric hospitals in the nation, I am confident that I will be able to achieve the goal of being a pediatric nurse. I have always loved children. Being a mother myself I know how extremely smart they are. They can always keep you on your toes. I would love to be an pediatric oncology nurse. There is such a need for them with the increasing raise of childhood cancer. I think my love for children, my empathetic side, the fact I love to be silly and make everything a game I would be a great pediatric nurse. One of my professors was previously a pediatric nurse and hearing her talk about it has made me want to become one even more than I have before. With getting great tips from her on how to get a child to take their medicine or get up and walk around, will help with the transition from becoming a nursing student to an actual nurse a better transition.

Growing up I was always considered the dumb sister. My older sister was in all AP classes and growing up I struggled with dyslexia. My mom never made sure I received the proper help with it saying that I would use it as a crutch. I think she was more just nervous about other kids finding out and making fun of me. When it came to getting a higher education I never thought that was possible for me. College seemed out of reach for me. I went to college right after high school due to my mom telling me I had to. I dropped out before I could even finish a semester. The lack of confidence and drive there was no way I would finish a four-year degree. To be honest I also had no idea what I wanted to do in life. I ended up going to esthetics school and finishing my certificate in 2017. I knew that this was not the final step of education in my life and that there was more I wanted to do more in life. I am now a single mother to two incredible children. My daughter is four years old and my son is 4 months old. I want them to see that anything is possible with hard work. I also want to provide them with a great life. I fell in love with nursing while working as a registrar in the ER at a local hospital. I enrolled at a community college to get most of my prerequisites done starting at the beginning of 2022. I will now be starting an accelerated BSN program starting September of this year. I want to show my children that no matter how old you are or where you are in life it never hurts to invest in yourself. I want to prove to myself and others around me that even though it takes me a bit longer to catch on to learning different things I can accomplish my goals no matter how hard it gets. I have spent my entire life doubting myself that I can achieve grades that could qualify me to become a nurse. I have proved myself wrong and I am so proud that I can take this next step to actually attending nursing school and hopefully continue to become a nurse practitioner. Making this career change would impact my childrens and mines life significantly.

In the summer of 2020 during the peak of covid after being laid off from a retail job there were not many jobs available to pick from. I decided to apply for a job as an ER Registrar for a local hospital and I was hired. The woman who was training told me you either can handle what you see in the ER or you will quit the first week you hit the floor. This made me quite nervous. As someone who struggled with seeing blood growing up, I was afraid that I was not cut out for this. Though being a mom who was about to come single I knew that I needed this job until life went back to normal. The moment I stepped onto the floor in the ER I realized how interested I was in nursing. I was no longer the girl who got queasy at the sight of blood. I was extremely interested in what was going on around me. It took me as a surprise because my mother was a registered nurse and I never once wanted to hear any of her stories or was interested in the work of field she was in. All of a sudden I was wanting to learn as much as I could from the nurses around me. The relationship I was in at the time was not supportive of me taking that route. After leaving that relationship it took me over a year to decide to start school. I started at a community college at the beginning of 2022. I took a majority of my prereqs there it worked out great for me being a single mom who was working full time. My daughter was great at encouraging me to keep going when it got hard. She loved watching my classes and learning about the human body and even asked for an anatomy sculpture from Santa for Christmas. She even says now that she will go to school to be a doctor and that I can be a nurse and we will work together. This year I became a mother to a little boy as well when looking at my children they have influenced me to provide the best possible life I can for ourselves. They are the encouragement I need to keep trying no matter how hard school can get. I hope the path that I have taken in life even though it is late compared to others shows them that nothing is impossible if you truly want it.

Growing up the nursing field never seemed like an option to me. I grew up with a mother who was a registered nurse and hearing her stories would make my stomach turn and my mother would claim that my face would turn green. I decided to go into esthetics always having a love for glitz and glamour. While studying my mom was surprised that I was learning subjects that she studied while she was in nursing school. I graduated in 2017 and shortly later became pregnant with my daughter Willow and gave birth to her in 2018. I became a stay at home and was not in a very healthy relationship. When discussing wanting to go back to school I was ridiculed that I was not smart enough for that. Feeling lost in life and not happy with my relationship I decided to start working. I was accepted as a registrar in an ER during the summer of 2020, right as covid was hitting its peak. Everyone told me when I started registration that you can either handle what you saw in the ER or would quit during the first week on the floor. The moment I stepped foot into ER I fell in love with nursing. Never in my life did I see myself in this position. That job gave me a large amount of motivation that I was not expecting. I left my daughter's dad at the end of 2020 and I met my current partner in the ER. With my current partner's support, I enrolled at a local community college in 2022 to take a couple of my prerequisites. Being a mom, going to school, and working full-time was but was extremely rewarding. My daughter would sit with me while I was in online classes and get to learn about anatomy and physiology. I will be starting nursing school at Chamberlain University in September of this year. My ultimate goal is to become a nurse practitioner. I want to be able to help people who do not have any insurance. I worked at a nonprofit doctor's office and it was great seeing all the different people they helped. Whether they were helping people who had just come to this country and needed medications or people who were unable to afford certain medications, they were constantly making a difference in everyones life. I hope that I can make a positive impact in the medical word by helping people who do not think health care is available for them.