My desire to lead a life of caring

Personal ment. Looking back over the years, I am struck by the fact that my present decision to join the accelerated B. S. program in Nursing atthe VCU is actually the logical culmination of my progression through various life choices and experiences. The only constant in my life has been my love of interaction with people of all ages and social strata. This first led me to opt for a B. S. in Business, with Human Resource Management as my major. After my graduation, I worked for eight months as a HRM assistant at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. I learned that self-confidence stems from an individual’s ability to feel good about oneself. It is this ‘ feel-good’ factor which motivates a person towards success and brings happiness. This led me back to school to study aesthetics. Subsequently, I have been a skin-care therapist for the last five years. I love my job – mainly for its’ hands-on approach to people. My experience reinforced my belief that the basic requisite for life fulfillment is the ‘ feel-good’ factor. If a facial can contribute towards a feeling of self-esteem, how much more is physical well-being instrumental in bringing about happiness? And what better means to combine my love of interpersonal interaction and my desire to make people feel better about themselves than a career in Nursing?
The Nursing career I envision is one in which my experiences as an aesthetician will prove valuable. I would like my Nursing career to center around plastic surgery. This strikes me as the ideal way to do my little part towards making people feel better about themselves. As an alumnus of VCU, who thrived in, and absolutely adored, its’ unique ambience of cultural diversity and inclusiveness, I would not dream of attending any other school. VCU is simply the best! In addition, after graduation, I hope to join MCV, where I can apply the knowledge I have gained and give back to VCU in my own way. I am a native speaker of Spanish and this is a strength I want to share through my services as an interpreter in the hospital.
I am confident that I can successfully complete my program as I am armed with the belief that Nursing is what I want to do for the rest of my life. What matters more to me than my membership of the Honors’ Society in college, or my academic qualifications, is the personal conviction, born of experience, that it is within my reach to make the world a better place. I go to Colombia twice a year, armed with all the food and clothes I can carry from a bounteous U. S. A. to the needy in my less fortunate home country. My husband and I have made it an integral part of our Christmas routine to adopt a poor child for the day and give him all the fun and toys we can to make the day truly festive for him. The ‘ top-of-the-world’ feeling, which comes from the realization that the greatest gift you can give someone is simply your time and expression of concern, has to be experienced to be believed!
Nursing would be only an extension of my desire to lead a life of caring. It will equip me with the practical skills I need to help people achieve physical well-being and give me the opportunity to show my patients the human face of medical science. My love for people, the joy I have derived from my little acts of social service, the insights I have gained in the fields of HRM and aesthetics have all inexorably brought me to the threshold of a career in Nursing. Nursing is definitely the goal toward which the past thirty years of my life have been leading.