View Vermont Nurses Miriam, Russell, and Jean as they share their stories (video) about furthering their education and what being a nurse means to them.
[Music]
[Miriam]
I decided to go back to school top get more education because I becoming aware that more and more opportunities were linked in to an educational degree specifically a bachelors degree. And jobs that I had formally held and been successful at and had liked a lot , I would no longer be considered a viable applicant for those jobs because I don’t have a bachelors degree in nursing.
[Russell]
More hospitals and organizations are looking either exclusively or hiring, giving preference to bachelor’s-prepared nurses, so I decided to go and get my BSN and so that I could have more career versatility and hopefully, um make my options greater in the future.
[Mary Val Palumbo]
New things come up in our clinical setting that we have to learn and we have to respond to, there’s new treatments, there’s new diagnosis, so going back to school really gives you the tools to really help you continue to be a lifelong learner in a more structured way.
[Jean]
I’ve been a nurse for a long time. I’ve been almost 30 years, a nurse, and I have the Associate’s degree, and then I decided to go and get my bachelor’s degree cut
[Russell]
Because I work nights, an online program really appealed to me, because it enables me to kind of go at my own pace and when I started seeing advertisements at my work for an online program at UVM with tuition-sponsored assistance, I said Great, that’s perfect.
[Jean]
The online program was perfect for me. Because of where I live, it’s quite rural, and to drive somewhere and take classes would almost be a hardship
[Mary Val]
In Vermont we have a number of different options that combine online learning with maybe being in residence, so the nurses in our Vermont area certainly have the opportunity to have some classroom-type learning if that’s what they prefer.