At age 18, Angelica Vazquez is the youngest student in her vocational nursing cohort.
“I started (college) as soon as I could but I was pretty surprised that I was the youngest one,” Vazquez said after her American Career College-Lynwood cohort’s VN capping ceremony. “I expected people around my age to be there too but no. They're a couple that are 19, but that's it.”
Right after high school Vazquez was working full-time at a fast food restaurant before deciding to enroll in ACC’s 16-month program. A few months after enrolling at ACC-Lynwood, she and her cohort were celebrating at St. Francis Medical Center the move from the classroom to the clinical phase of their program.
“I still work part-time, but I already put in my two weeks because I want to really just focus, put all my dedication into school right now,” she said. “Imagine if I hadn’t started school. I would have just been stuck at my job, but I'm actually really happy to here. I'm doing it and I will get to where I want to be in April of next year. I'm really glad I started."
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Why did you choose to attend ACC?
I found nursing to be a very empathetic job that not many have the courage to take on and my mom was always in nursing. I wanted to follow in her footsteps and make her proud and just show her that I can do it and even go further and just help people.
So you wanted to be a nurse because of your mom?
Just seeing that it made her happy, helping other people, I thought that it would bring the same happiness to me. I took a medical terminology class in high school and it was great. As soon as I started that class, I started to know more and understand more of what the doctors and nurses were talking about and it was very interesting.
What’s your dream job?
If not a midwife, I want to be teaching what I'm learning. I feel like because I'm going through it right now I will know what was hardest for me to learn and how I would explain it to people. I feel like I want to help others learn this because I know it's hard to go through. I'd either teach students nursing or I would like to be a midwife because delivering babies sounds like fun to me, like it'll be a happy job.
What's the key to your success in the VN program?
The fact that I didn't want to be behind in school. It's a lot of work and if you miss one hour, that's just a lot to make up. I'd rather be there and be there learning the same thing, the same way the whole class learned it than to be lost and to be behind and having to catch up. It’s too much work and what they tell us is: 'Work harder, not smarter,' which means to learn and practice to do things the right way and you won't have to invent a whole new process just for yourself.
What inspires you?
This event was really inspiring me, to just want to continue on and to get to the end and the big graduation. It just makes me happy to see that all these teachers really are here for you and they want you to do good and they want you to pursue your dreams. And it makes me happy to actually know that I've got to this point. I know it's not that far, but I will do more and I'm going to go on and go on and the teachers are going to be behind me every step of the way — and so is my mom.
Just making my mom happy inspires me too. I just want to make her proud of me and seeing her happy makes me happy. It really does. She's happy, like she's crying right now for this ceremony, imagine my graduation.
