With National Nurses Week 2018 coming to a close, I thought it would be fitting to reflect on my nursing school journey. This year was my first year getting to celebrate National Nurses Week as a Registered Nurse. However, I began this journey many years before this. And it was a long and hard journey full of many setbacks and challenges to overcome.


During my junior and senior years of high school (2013-2014) I volunteered at a local hospital. I worked in the gift shop and often interacted with patients and families who were just browsing, but also made the occasional delivery to patient rooms. As time came to apply to colleges, I decided that the hospital setting was for me, so I applied to various nursing programs all over the country. My dream ever since middle school was to go to New York University. When acceptances started coming out, I was devastated to find out I was waitlisted. However, I found out in May that I had been accepted, but with little loan assistance, I knew that my dream wasn't going to become a reality. I decided to enroll at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

I was terrified and excited all at the same time to move all the way to Massachusetts. I had no friends or no family on the other side of the country, and no one else from my high school was going to the East Coast. I was completely alone for this new adventure. I experienced all the seasons for the first time in my life. In fact, my first ever winter in Lowell was the worst winter recorded in history. I never really took my studies that seriously my freshman year. I toed the line between passing and failing the entire time and never really thought about or even understood the consequences. When I came back home to California for the summer, I was expecting to be back in Massachusetts in the fall for my second year.

Come July I received an email dismissing me from the nursing program. I had gotten a C- in Anatomy and Physiology 2 and anything below a C was unacceptable. I was devastated. And panicked. It was July, way past the deadline of applying to universities for the fall semester. I was at a lost for what I was going to do. Was I going to go to a community college in the meantime? Take a semester off? Was I even going to continue in nursing?

I googled and researched different nursing programs and reached out to recruiters in hopes of a miracle. I remembered a university that my friend from high school had gone to for nursing. Luckily for me, a recruited emailed me back almost immediately. Things got into motion and by August I was at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona, still in the running of becoming a nurse.  GCU's nursing program was different from UML's. For starters, at UML, the nursing program started freshman year, once you were in, you were in. At GCU you had prerequisites to finish and a HESI to take before you could apply to get into the actual nursing program. My first year at GCU was spent finishing those prerequisites. I let my failure from UML fuel my fire to succeed in this new school. As soon as I was eligible to apply to the nursing program I did, and to my disbelief I got in!

The program I was a part of in GCU was the fast track program, meaning no breaks during the summer, just four straight semesters of nursing school all in a row. For me, figuring out my study habits was a big part of my success. When I was younger I could just breeze by classes without ever reading the textbook or paying attention. Nursing school was nothing like I had ever encountered. I pre-read every chapter before class, painstakingly took notes in class, went home and re-read the chapters and re-wrote the notes. I had felt the sting of failure before and wasn't about to put myself in that position again. Another thing that contributed to my success of nursing school was finding friends, and a strong support system in them. My nursing friends were truly my rocks, as no one else in my life truly understood what I was going through except them.

Slowly but surely, level by level I got through it. Through all the lectures, labs, clinicals, HESIs, sweat, and tears. I was so fortunate to be part of an amazing cohort, learn from the best nursing educators, and shadow nurses in the field who were happy to teach. My senior level of the program I had been accepted into the residency program and had the opportunity to complete it in a pediatric hospital, my dream job. Graduation and pinning came, and I had finally done it. I had graduated nursing school, cum laude. From failing out of one program, to graduating another with honors. Life can throw a wrench in your plans, but sometimes it's for the better. It can lead you down another path where you accomplish so much more than you could have ever dreamed.


I graduated nursing school in August of 2017 and sat for my NCLEX in October 2017. It was scary and nerve wracking. On one hand I had failed and burned miserably at UML, but on the other I came and rose from the ashes at GCU. I was terrified that my NCLEX experience would go the way it did for me at UML. I spent every day for hours on end studying, pouring over every workbook and q-bank question I could get my hands on. The morning of October 20, I drank a cup of coffee, ate some cereal, and got dropped off at the testing center. The entire time I felt sick and felt like everything I was doing was wrong. My computer shut off after 76 questions, further cementing the feeling of doom. 2 days later I received the good news, and passed the NCLEX on my first try. I have now been working as an RN for about 2 months now, and now more than ever I am so thankful for this journey.

Nursing school was one of the biggest monsters I have conquered in my life. Though it was full of heartbreak, blood, sweat, and tears, I came out alive and thrived. UML and GCU were both amazing institutions, and my successes and my failures were all solely based on my attitudes and motivation. If you are in nursing school, considering going to nursing school, a nurse wanting to reflect on your experiences, or just someone who wanted to know, I hope my journey encourages you and keeps the fire burning.