Essay: Where will you be in 5 years time?

In Five Years…
I will be in my Junior Year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, working towards my Masters degree before going on to get a PhD at a medical school of my choice.
At IUP, I plan to start my career of becoming a neonatal Neonatal Nurse which is, “nursing that works with newborn infants born with a variety of problems ranging from prematurity, birth defects, infection, cardiac malformations, and surgical problems” (“Is A Career in Neonatal Nursing Right for You?”).
I want to do something that is challenging, interesting, and makes a difference in the lives of those around me everyday. Helping families through a difficult situation is a very satisfying thing and, being a person who gets bored of things quicker than I should, something that would help me maintain interest in the career would be, “the wide variety of options in terms of schedules, locations, and levels of responsibilities” (Santiago).
I want a career that doesn’t only involve me using the things I know but also learning and growing from the thoughts and ideas of those around me. I personally think that the nursing career is the most interesting and growing career there is available in this day and age. As a nurse, challenging yourself to do better would be a daily occurrence, wanting to make sure that your patients hospital visit is a success. I want to work in a place that can both challenge me mentally and physically rather than a place where I’m doing the same thing everyday.
I will be in my Junior Year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, working towards my Masters degree before going on to get a PhD at a medical school of my choice. In my college career I plan to extend my arms and fully embrace clubs and extracurricular I would never do in high school. In five years I want to worry about myself and my goals, always reaching higher than I did the day before to make my dreams become my reality.
Education / Training
I am looking to enroll in Indiana State University, “a four year university.” However not the best school for Nursing it is well within my budget and very capable and, ““IUP does a really great job of preparing you. They have a 96 percent pass rate on that (referencing the […] exam)-on the first try,” said Megan Spangler, nursing major” (“Nursing, BS”). I will be able to be trained at a hands-on pace and my first year,  “I’ll spend taking required science and liberal studies courses” (“Nursing, BS”). Studying at IUP will also train me to have critical thinking skills needed for the operating room, leadership roles and communication skills needed for having a successful career.
Applying for extracurricular activities is a major part of my life so I plan to involve myself in at least a few clubs, like the Big Hearts Little Hands Mentoring Program because my career will deal with children so the program would help me connect with children easier. I plan to job shadow other Nurses to see what types of things they do as daily tasks, familiarize myself with the stuff I would have to do in an everyday situation.
IUP has a very good hands on program called “Simulation Labs” which are,  “state-of-the-art home health, birthing, and critical care suites that are equipped with computerized mannequins” (“Undergraduate Programs In Nursing and Allied Health Professions”). I would also like to work with their “Clinical Exposure” program which is a program that “gradually exposes you to the real-life world of nursing by placing you in various clinical environments for three of your four academic years”(“Undergraduate Programs In Nursing and Allied Health Professions”). As well as Simulation Labs and Clinical Exposure, “Nursing courses and clinicals begin in the first semester of your sophomore year” (“Nursing, BS”).
Junior Year of Bedford High School
My junior year I plan to take Anatomy, Biology, Chemistry, other classes related to Nursing and sciences and any other required classes like Maths and English. I plan to stay in SADD and hopefully find other interesting clubs to join. I need to maintain a high GPA, which could help me to get into College easier (gives me a better chance) and I would start preparing for the SATs or ACTs. I would want to start going to College Fairs or begin job shadowing nurses to see what things they actually do. I would also start touring colleges and might even apply to IUP early.
I would like to have a job by this point, most likely at Sheetz and would like to start saving up for college and/or other things I may or may not need throughout the rest of my high school life and through my college life.
In my junior year I really want to start branching out and maybe expanding my social skills or start learning about something I find interesting. I want to work on becoming more responsible.
I want to start speaking with my guidance counselor and researching what college life is like. I want to work on getting my life ready to start my senior year and I want to begin to gain perspective on how I want my life to turn out and what choices I need to begin making to be able to do the things I want to do with my life.
Senior Year of Bedford High School
My senior year I plan to keep my grades up, which may be easier said than done. I would start thinking more about what I would like to do in college, like what extra activities I would want to do and if I haven’t applied to IUP yet, I would do that now. I want to try and involve myself in more extracurricular activities.
In senior year I would like to try doing senior challenge, maybe I would start my freshman year of college as my senior year of high school. I also want to start going out of my comfort zone a bit in my senior year, like doing an activity I haven’t tried before. Considering I haven’t spent more than a week away from my own house maybe I’ll start preparing mentally for not being with my family as much when I start college.
I want to start speaking with others who plan to go into the medical field in college and ask them why they wanted to go into that field, maybe ask them what it takes to prepare yourself to be able to get the degree I want.
I may miss the security of always knowing what was coming for me when stepping through the high school doors. So, maybe I will take a year off to smell the roses and get my affairs in order before going to college, but I do know that either way I will always remember the fun I had in high school.
The Next Step
For me, the next step began with emailing Ian McIsaac, an Assistant Director of Admissions at IUP to ask about which prerequisites I should take in order to have a successful time throughout my college career. IUP doesn’t have required courses for nursing students during their high school career, “However, it is highly recommended that students interested in nursing take classes related to chemistry, biology and anatomy/physiology.” Classes in these areas during high school will lay a foundation that you can build upon during your career at IUP (McIsaac).
After being informed of the GPA and SAT scores I would need I also set up a system to make sure I kept my grades up, “The most important aspect of a nursing applicant is to maintain a high gpa (3.25 or greater on a 4.0 scale)   and high SAT scores (at least a 1030)” (McIsaac).
I began to talk with some of my friends that also considered joining the Nursing field and why they wanted to get into that field. I also began looking at blogs or other internet passages about nursing and what types of things Neonatal Nurses did on the daily. I began really worrying about my grades and constantly trying to get a better score so my GPA remained high.
I also plan to volunteer at the Bedford Humane Society to give me an idea of how helping people and/or animals get healthier and know how it is to actually work in a place that is trying to better society.