Madeline Chavez

UNM-Valencia Visionary Grad, Class of 2025

Transcript

Hi. My name is Madeline. I am pursuing a nursing degree here at UNM-Valencia. I'm from Socorro, New Mexico, and I have three beautiful little girls. I started pursuing nursing, sort of on an impulse, and then I kind of started getting into the medical field while I was doing my prerequisites, and I kind of fell in love with it as I started just working in the healthcare environment. I was working in the ER as registration and then moved in as a tech, and so it just felt right for me. So, I started here at UNM-Valencia in 2015, due to some unforeseen circumstances, I had quit. So, I had, you know, preexisting knowledge of UNM-Valencia. So, when I decided to come back to school for nursing, I felt that UNM-Valencia was much more inclusive and much more of a community based college, and I felt more comfortable with it due to the fact that I do have a family at home. It made travel easier, and the cost was a little less for me and I'm glad I did it. The inclusivity that I have experienced here has been phenomenal.

Nursing school has come with many challenges down the road. I think the most difficult thing to manage is as a parent and, you know, full-time employee is managing school, work, home life balance and studying. But I was able to kind of split things to the best of my ability and work through that despite the difficulty and a lot of that comes from the support system I have at home and the support system I have here at UNM-Valencia.

I had an atypical experience when it came to starting the ADN program here at UNM-Valencia. I started with an initial cohort, which, you know, I got along with really well and so I finished my first semester and had to take a year off. And then once that year was up, I had to reacclimate to being in school and being with a completely different group of people. So, I had to adjust and, you know, learn these people and start the whole school process over again. But I was welcomed in, and I grew to really appreciate the people that I work with and, you know, my peers, we support each other, we help each other, and I'm fortunate to have them. And in terms of additional support that I have had is through the instructors here at UNM-Valencia, particularly Joe Poole, our director, and Audrey Morton. They have both been so influential in my college experience, and I'm fortunate to have met them. When it comes to my family, I'm- I'm so grateful for my parents and my little girls because I'm- I'm not as home as often as I'd like to be, but I feel that I'm doing this to better myself and to create a better life for them. And all of the other people that have been there for me, extended family and friends, have really made it possible for me to get to this point and, you know, get closer to reaching the finish line.

When I am through with school and graduate, I've already been offered a position at my current workplace at Socorro General Hospital as a graduate nurse. So, I'll be able to do that prior to taking my NCLEX, which is the boards for nursing. If you pass your boards, you get your license. If you don't, then you have to take it again. But while I'm waiting to take the NCLEX, I have the opportunity to practice as a nurse with a preceptor, to be there to support you and teach you while you're waiting for the boards to come around. So very fortunate to have that ability and to have that sort of relationship with my coworkers and keep the relationships that I have with my managers and administration where I work. The best advice I can give to somebody who is starting, you know, headed towards the nursing program is to really just not give up. And don't be too hard on yourself. It's- it's a hard program regardless of where you are. And if you study, you know as much as you can and really just focus on your goals and where you want to go from here. It gets easier. You know, be positive. Don't look at all the negative, you know, don't look at the workload. Look at what you're going to obtain and acquire from the work that they're giving you. They're not you know, our instructors want to, you know, teach us and to make us good nurses. And I think that's very obvious here. And if you communicate with your instructors and, you know, be forward with them, they're here to help. They don't want to see you fail. They want to see you succeed.