Because nursing school apps.
The prompt:
“What motivates you to pursue nursing as a profession?” (1500 characters max)
My response:
I discovered my unlikely call to nursing by simply listening to what broke my heart the most. After earning my bachelors degrees in International Relations and Psychology with a minor in Professional Writing from UC Davis, I began work at Conyes Academy, a school for seriously emotionally disturbed (SED) children in Oakland. As a behavioral counselor and K-8 teacher, I thought I could be a vehicle for positive and meaningful change in these students' lives. I quickly realized, however, that I simply did not possess enough professional knowledge to fully serve them when they needed help the most. Dean, a 2nd grader battling constant psychosis, was often unable to learn, let alone function, given his frequent delusions and hallucinations. I sat with him in crisis after crisis and held him for hours in my own arms to keep him safe from his altered reality. I attempted to soothe him with all the love, care, and understanding I could possibly give, only to await the arrival of an ambulance that would transfer him to the hands of an amazing psychiatric team with all the tools, skills, and knowledge necessary to nurture him, and many others, back to health. Through empathy, I inherited my students' pain every single day and felt my initial heartbreak turn into an immediate desire to become a nurse: the advocate and instrument of healing with the holistic knowledge to address every way a person experiences pain – spiritually, socially, psychologically, and physically – as a whole.