Beverly J. Torbert

I went to a diploma school initially, Madison General Hospital School of Nursing in Madison, Wisconsin. I had a three-year diploma from there, which was not uncommon. There were a lot of three-year programs back then. I had always wanted to get a bachelor's degree. I could only take one class at FIU at a time because I was working and had a family. It took me about two years. At one point, I took the NLM Exams in nursing. I received high enough scores to have all of my nursing classes accepted. The only things that I did not have in my basic training were home health and research, and I had to take those classes through FIU. I also had to take Spanish and some other things that satisfied the core requirement. I was so excited to be able to obtain my bachelor's degree. I really wanted to get a master's degree too. I did take one course in the Graduate Program, but I had so much going on in my life that I could not continue to pursue that. I would have done so at FIU if I had been able to accomplish that. I worked in nursing for 43 years. I'm grateful for FIU's ability to allow nurses to complete a bachelor's degree, even if we were working and had a family. When I went through my initial training, that flexibility did not exist. If we wanted to become nurses, we had to go to school full-time. FIU was able to offer flexibility, and that is extremely important even now. There are a lot of nurses who have their associate's and then go back and get their bachelor's. They can continue to work, take care of their families, and go to school. I always loved the FIU campus. It was very nice, and I had good teachers. It was a very positive experience for me. I looked at nursing as a calling, and I could never imagine myself being anything other than a nurse. I always felt very blessed.