Amanda graduated from Springfield Technical Community College with an associate’s degree in biology and then enrolled at Elms College in the nursing program. It was right after the pandemic and she felt nursing was right for her. Plus her father works as a physician’s assistant and she said she knows a lot of people in work in healthcare. “I felt this is what I was meant to do,” she said.
It was all going well until she went out on her first clinical trials as part of her nursing classes. In clinical trials, students put into actual practice all the theories they learn in the classroom. But after her first experience at clinicals, she realized nursing was not right for her.
“I hate saying this but I had a Gray’s Anatomy perspective of what nursing was. When we started clinicals, I was giving medicine to patients and changing bandages and documenting things, and I was going ‘What is this?’ And the senior nurses were saying “This is what nursing is.”
Unsure what to do, she met with her faculty advisor, and he said it was OK; nursing is not for everyone. The next question was if nursing was not for her, then what was?
“I always loved English and loved writing,” she said. “That’s when I decided I should take the English major route.”
“Everyone was ‘Why would you leave a high-paying field of work like nursing?’ But I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t like it. But I was lucky enough to have other options,” she said.
At Elms, she became involved in Bloom, the college literary magazine. She became a peer leader and an orientation leader, and for her internship, she taught poetry at the Holyoke Care Center to young mothers trying to earn their high school equivalency.
“Through the internship, I met so many people who are writers. I met a woman whose poetry was in the New York Times. I’ve been invited to writing workshops,” she said. “
“I love the editor side of writing. When I was in nursing, I liked being connected with the patient or working with peers on projects; I didn’t like the other parts.
Working with people makes me happy because I’m a people person. This internship and working with Bloom taught me that I really like working with people editing papers. It’s killing two birds with one stone; I have the people aspect and also the editor aspect,” she said.
She said she would not necessarily have learned this if she had not gone to Elms. The close connections she made with faculty and with her advisor made her feel that it was all right to consider another path.
“ I just think they are looking out for you. I don’t think I have any regrets about Elms.”
Amanda Munson. 2023 Graduate. Bachelor of Arts in English.