2023届毕业生:玛丽莎·沃恩

作者:Erik Pedersen，高级公关经理

2023届毕业生

BALTIMORE – After 10 years working in early childhood education, 23岁的玛丽莎·沃恩准备换工作了. She felt that she had gone as far as she could in the profession, 她准备尝试一些新的东西.

That desire to shake things up led Vaughn back to a previous childhood desire to become a nurse. 快进四年, and she is one step closer towards achieving that goal when she graduates with honors from 马里兰大学圣母大学 with a 护理学学士学位 本月末.

Vaughn joined NDMU as a transfer student midway through her sophomore year, and she has excelled on campus while benefiting from the program’s personalized, 小班环境. She was recently recognized as the 护理学院’s Award for Advocacy recipient at Notre Dame’s 2023 Undergraduate Senior Awards ceremony. 了解更多关于Vaughn在NDMU的经历:


When did you realize that you wanted to become a nurse? 是什么吸引你进入这个领域的?

我从小就想成为一名护士, but just didn’t have the drive when I was younger to go to school and dive into what I knew was an in-depth, 具有挑战性的项目. I spent the first 10 years of my professional career in early childhood education, and then at year 10 I realized that I was kind of capped out. 我在一个中心当了五年主任, 经营学校, and at 30 years old I just didn’t feel like I had anywhere else to go in the field.

我决定是时候寻找新的东西了. I made a list of everything I’ve ever wanted to do in my life, and I landed on nursing. 这是我一直热衷的事情. 我真的很喜欢帮助别人. 它装满了我的桶 – 它带给我快乐.

How did you first hear about Notre Dame, and what led you to apply here?

我来自科罗拉多州. My fiancé’s family is from here, and we made the move to 马里兰 a few years ago. I’m a transfer student from Community College of Baltimore County Catonsville. They have a dual enrollment program with the 护理学院 at Notre Dame, and when I toured the campus I knew that it would be a good fit. I loved the small class sizes – that’s huge for me. I can’t imagine attending a school with those stadium-style classrooms – I do much better with smaller groups of people. 这对我来巴黎圣母院很有帮助.

你在NDMU的经历是怎样的? Do you feel like you’ve been set up for success after graduation?

肯定. 从我第一学期开始, I felt like the classes really build well upon each other as the program progresses. That was helpful in terms of gradually learning skills piece by piece. We all dread the ATI (Assessment Technologies Institute) exams, but I think they’ve been very helpful in setting us up to pass the NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) and get a job. I feel prepared to graduate – the 护理学院 has given us all the tools we need to succeed.

How have your nursing rotations helped prepare you for the profession?

临床经验很好. 我对他们都有很好的指导老师. My practicum experience, though, had a particularly strong impact on me. It was my longest experience – we did 10 shifts which lasted 12 hours each. It was really great to be able to have that 1-on-1 hands-on experience to start to hone in on my nursing skills and get some actual practice in the field. It also helped me recognize what kind of nurse I want to be, and what I’m looking for in terms of my nursing career path.

What kind of healthcare setting do you hope to work in?

我对临终关怀很感兴趣, but it’s a really specialized field – there are big differences between bedside nursing and hospice bedside nursing. My practicum helped me determine that I want to do a one-year nurse residency in a hospital bedside setting. That would give me the opportunity to really develop all of the skills that I’ve learned in practice for at least a year before going into a specific specialty.

你的长期职业目标是什么?

I want to go back to school eventually, sometime within the next five years. I hope to get my nurse practitioner’s license and become either a family or palliative nurse practitioner to further my career.

成立于1895年, 马里兰大学圣母大学 (NDMU) is a private, 巴尔的摩的天主教机构, 马里兰, with the mission to educate leaders to transform the world. Notre Dame has been named one of the best "Regional Universities North" by U.S. 新闻 & 世界报道.