Andrea Durand

I wanted to go into a secure job market. I was also interested in helping others, and the ongoing education in medicine was very interesting to me. I liked the reputation that FIU had in the community. It was home to a lot of international students. Being from the area, I've always known about FIU. It was one of the top schools that I wanted to go to. One of the times that I remember was getting to shadow Dr. Simon for 120 hours toward the end of my program. I really enjoyed seeing a different part of nursing aside from the hospital type of nursing. She allowed me to see the teaching aspect of it, and that was very cool for me. I was a telemetry nurse, but I have not always known exactly where I wanted to be. Once I got my bachelor's degree, I decided to go for a more intense route. I applied to a critical care unit, and here I am. I'm most grateful for the opportunity to see different areas of nursing. My most memorable experience was following Dr. Simon and seeing the teaching aspect of nursing. She passed on a lot of encouragement. She shared her experiences with me, and she allowed me to see how she functioned as a professor in her everyday life.