Victoria Flores

Transitions: Becoming a Doctoral Student in Nursing

I didn’t really know what I was getting into when I said yes to UC San Francisco School of Nursing. As a young woman from a small town in rural south Texas (population 4,000), my acceptance here was a dream come true, but it also meant some dramatic adjustments.

 

The roots of my interest in advanced practice nursing took hold the summer after my first year of undergraduate studies. At the time, I was a chemical engineering major at the University of Texas, and one day I volunteered to drive my grandparents to their cardiology appointment. When their cardiologist – Fernando Triana, MD – came into the room, my grandma told him I was looking for a summer job. He offered to see if there was something available in the office, and I assumed he was thinking of something in the mailroom that would give me a paycheck.

So when he said he wanted me to shadow him in clinic and participate in research examining the risk factors for cardiovascular disease, well, I’ll never forget the excitement. I cried most of the drive home. At the time, I had given very little thought to what I wanted to do after college, but his mentorship on research projects for the next year and a half solidified that health care was the route for me. I switched my undergraduate major to nursing. That experience – plus my rural childhood – began to make clear to me the importance of primary and preventive care.

I decided to pursue a master’s degree as an adult-gerontology primary care nurse practitioner with an occupational and environmental health focus, which is what brought me to UCSF. Making the decision to move across the country was challenging, but my fears were overcome by the School’s strong reputation; it was an opportunity to learn from the best and become the best nurse I could be.

Arriving in the Bay Area

Still, when I arrived that summer of 2014, the cool summer fog quickly reminded me of why change can be hard.

Trying to save money on the move, I lived out of a suitcase for nearly three weeks while awaiting the rest of my possessions. I sorted garbage for the first time in the Bay Area’s environmentally conscious community. I learned to navigate the big city using a range of unfamiliar transit options. I had to carefully manage my money in an area where the cost of living is 62.6 percent higher than the national average.

And having been born and raised in Texas – things, of course, are big there – I was suddenly living in a place that was less than 400 square feet. It’s cramped, yes, but it’s worth it, because it has saved me commute time, and that half hour of sleep each day was surprisingly important as I began coping with the challenges of an advanced practice nursing program.

However, in addition to the challenges I mentioned above, I also struggled to balance work with graduate school demands, especially without the immediate support of family or friends. Although I knew my family was only a phone call or text away, we had never had to communicate across time zones before, and it wasn’t always easy. I was used to my family being around all the time. I missed my Texas support system. I didn’t know anybody prior to school starting, so I couldn’t just grab dinner with a friend.

But I also knew – and still know – that growth is impossible without change. Scary as it is, I like change. It keeps me intrigued and on my toes.

Thankfully, as I began the master’s program, I quickly found companionship in my cohort. Together we faced the challenges of academia. We were nurses with a wide range of social, ethnic, regional and work experiences, but we shared ideas and learned from each other. Each of us had strengths in different areas and previous experiences that influenced our approach to problems and patients.

That was a highlight of my master’s program, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that’s one of the secrets to success in graduate school: It isn’t meant to be done alone.

Each year, UC San Francisco (UCSF) School of Nursing is ranked among the top graduate schools in the nation. For more information about our Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner Program, visit https://nursing.ucsf.edu/academic-program/adult-gerontology-primary-care-nurse-practitioner-agpcnp​.  For more information about our Occupational and Environmental Health Nursing program, visit https://nursing.ucsf.edu/programs/specialties/occupational-and-environmental-health-nursing. Follow Victoria’s nursing journey through videos at https://nursing.ucsf.edu/news/student-journey.

 

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