Julie A. Armstrong

Florida International University offered a good BSN Program for those of us who were already nurses. Nursing and teaching ran in the family; my great-grandmother was a nurse trained in Austria, and my grandmother was a teacher. My education at FIU allowed me to get a BSN and move on to get my master's degree at the University of Miami. The biggest impact FIU had on me was my ability to take a music appreciation class. I had to repeat a chemistry class, and the professor I had was wonderful. If I hadn't passed that class, I would've never ended up with my BSN. She was a wonderful teacher. I got a better education at FIU, which led me to a better job. I initially graduated from a two-year program in 1963, and I was in a Reserve unit with the 324th Combat Support Hospital in Miami, Florida. I did 20 years there and retired. Going into teaching was great because we needed a lot of nursing instructors who knew how to be nurses first.