Karina has the honors of posting the first College Connect blog entry for the new school year! Read about her journey and any tips she may have!
Hi everyone!
My name is Karina Belberska and I am apart of the second cohort of College Connect :).
Karina excited for her first blog post!
I am currently doing an extra semester at Colby-Sawyer College which is in New Hampshire, thus making me a super-senior. I majored in public health and I was on the premedical track up until last year. I thought I wanted to be a doctor, but the more I looked into nursing, I realized that it was a passion of mine. The majority of public health classes were taught by nursing professors and they encouraged us to seek prevention at first and control of the disease discussed at hand. It wasn’t until I started volunteering at the local hospital that I realized that nursing will allow me to better serve the community I am interested in: low-income population in medically underserved communities.
It is crucial to ask your professors for help. I remember, how when I decided to finally go for nursing, I was really confused as to where I should be looking for the information I needed in order to apply and get all the documents needed. Last year I had my four year thesis class, called capstone, with the chair of the department of nursing and she was extremely helpful in guiding me as to where I have to start my research. I decided to go for an entry-level masters of nursing, instead of an accelerated bachelors of nursing program. I realized that my background in public health would be very helpful for my management position as a nurse in the future.
Look at the Colby-Sawyer spirit!
It is really interesting how at the beginning I was just taking classes that I was either interested in, or that were required of my major and I did not find the link between them. However, now that I am finishing my classes and am searching for graduate school I am able to link public health and nursing.
Above all, I encourage you to not only take various classes that are completely unrelated to you major, but to not be afraid to ask your professors about the various routes they have gone through to get to where they are now. Some of them would tell you that they had a completely different idea of what things would have looked in the future, which is exactly what is happening to me. You never know what kind of useful advice will come out of a random conversation or meeting with a professor. I was trying to add a class that would push me over 18 credits (the normal amount of credits) and it wasn’t being covered by my scholarship from the college. Fortunately I was visiting one of my previous professors and she helped me talk with the registrar to not bill me for the extra 2 credits. If it wasn’t for that professor, I would not have been able to add this class, which is a requirement for nursing graduate school.
-Karina, Cohort 2