Erin Wright Heath

I liked FIU a lot. I liked how big it was, and I liked the campus. I already had a bunch of friends there, and I was in the Honors College too. Once I got accepted to the College of Nursing, I stayed. Deciding to become a nurse was a culmination of things. I did an internship in high school at Tampa General, and I got to shadow different nursing units. I really liked the camaraderie and the competency that I saw in the nurses I met. I also had a family member who had a very serious accident. I got to experience the patient side, and I wanted to be the person who made things a little bit easier for people who went through the same situation. I remember my clinicals. I used to be very shy when I met new people, but every single day, I would go to the hospital and meet new patients. I got more comfortable with talking to people and helping people in a very vulnerable time. I've become a more confident person myself, and I really like what I do. In my year, we did a partnership with the VA. A lot of my clinicals and labs were at the VA, and my senior practicum was there too. There was also a project that we did with local families in the area that didn't have health insurance. It was a community health project. We would meet families and give them access to medical care with a medical student and a doctor. We had an interdisciplinary team that would go out and meet people. I enjoyed the Community and Neighborhood Health class that we did too. When I was in the College of Nursing, everything felt more real. I felt like I was working towards a career and something that I was really looking forward to. It put me in a really good position moving forward to do some of the jobs I've taken and live in some of the cities I've lived in. It set me up for a really great future coming out of college.