Brianna Williams tried to ignore her calling, but it didn’t work.
After graduating from college, Williams worked a variety of jobs, including being a teacher and an accountant but didn’t want to make a career out of either of them. It wasn’t until she embraced the truth that she wanted to be a nurse that everything clicked into place.
"My grandmother and my aunt were in the nursing field as well as my mother,” Williams said. “My mother was a nurse auditor for the Los Angeles County Hospital and just reading over her journals and her logs after she passed away, I just thought ‘This was so cool’ and I wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
Williams graduated from the vocational nursing program at American Career College-Los Angeles in January 2019 and would ultimately like to work at the VA Hospital. Williams said she believes a good nurse has to have a kind heart and brings calm to the room, while “marrying the medicine behind it.”
“I have several family members who are vets and I just see that that is an area of opportunity to best help,” she said. “My passion is to help and wanting to see people's lives change for the better. Going to emergency rooms and seeing that those people are facing the toughest times in their lives is hard. They're in pain, they're scared, but knowing that bringing a calm gentle spirit to that space can aid in their healing — I thought that was the best way that I could touch the world, one patient at a time.”
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Why did you enroll in the vocational nursing program?
I finally figured out what I wanted to do and I stopped running from my calling. I was in college, I've graduated college and I said this is not what I want to do. I want to be a nurse and I made the decision and I hit the pavement, researched some schools and I found ACC.
Do you remember why you chose ACC over your other options?
It was definitely the facility and the fact that they make the process so easy. It was seamless, from my start date to the finish in terms of the people who were there to help and get us through as students.
Did you ever feel like giving up or quitting?
Pretty much every time I didn't pass a test or I didn't score as high as I wanted to. I second-guessed myself every step of the way, but I had such great support, people who were like "You can make it, you can do this, stay the course" and I stayed in.
What was the hardest part about going back to school?
The hardest part was the long days away from my kids, honestly. Just being without them was one of the toughest things, missing out on milestones because they're so young. That was the toughest part. But I knew it was a small sacrifice in the grand scheme of my career choice.
Do you have any advice for people thinking about going to ACC?
My most practical advice for myself would be: This is totally different from a traditional college. You're going to have to learn all this stuff and it's going to have to stick and please, learn your meds. That would be my biggest advice. For anyone that's questioning whether they can make a life-changing choice or if they would be cut out for it, I would say just give it a try. You have such a great support system in place here that wants to see you succeed.
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