Eyes Open Seeing The fires Hidden within

Skills USA is an opportunity provided to LRTC students in all courses at LRTC. I am in the Certified Nursing Assistant class and was provided the opportunity to compete at the classroom competition for the chance to move on to the state level. I came out of that competition as the gold winner and was able to advance to the state competition in Maine. Where I came out with a silver medal. In that competition, I competed against 12 other girls in a long competition proving how well we can do Nurse assisting skills on real live people. The skills included transfers full assist off of a hospital bed into a wheelchair bed making, taking height, weight, temperature pulse, and respiration. As well as emptying a catheter bag and much more. There were several written tests on top of the skills I had already done. Winning the silver metal changed me it opened my eyes and started the fire inside me for my continuing education. The day that we traveled to skills I found out I lost my scholarship at the university I was attending and received a lower valued one. A scholarship that raised my anxiety about college debt. I would be over half a million dollars in debt if I went to that school. So I decided to continue my education at a community college that gives me more opportunities to be able to succeed and avoid debt that is endless. To have an opportunity of being able to do things I wouldn’t normally do for a cheaper alternative. I changed my major because of skills USA and decided to focus on nursing. Past the certification, I am very close to getting and becoming a CNA. Moving on to become a Registered Nurse with the goal to be doing that education at CMCC.Skills USA opened me up to the opportunities in front of me that I was facing all along and that I was ignoring. It shed light on a very good career path for me that I was not looking at. I was only looking for pay now I am seeing the whole of what it means to be in the medical field. It’s not about the pay, it is the feeling you get when you help someone get better and heal or even that feeling knowing you are helping someone who needs help and the service you supply. It is a good feeling that you should be looking for in a job. You should like what you do and not look for how much it pays until it comes time to budget for the year. I feel a medical career should be rewarding and that is what lit my educational fire in my heart and soul.

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