Why did you decide to major in nursing?

I’m from the Philippines and we have so many nurses in our family. It’s a really big point of pride. Ever since I was young, my mom was always telling me to think about health care, that this is what our family does. So, I shadowed a nurse in high school and really loved it.

Why did you choose to come to Iowa?

Being from West Des Moines, I was lucky enough to be in the same state as the University of Iowa. And the College of Nursing was all everybody in my certified nursing assistant class talked about. It was the big-ticket thing that everybody wanted to get into. Then, when I went to visit campus for the first time and I got to the College of Nursing building, hearing from actual nurses and nursing students really made me want to go here. I don’t think I even considered any other nursing school seriously. It's always been Iowa.

What are some of your earliest memories on campus?

I’ve moved around a lot, and when I move somewhere, I usually go a little bit crazy. I like to do as much as I can as quickly as possible. So, during On Iowa! week, I got on every single bus route at the university. I just tried to explore as much as I could. I went to the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center. I went to the Seamans Center, the engineering building. I went to the Stanley Museum of Art, which had just opened. It was all really awesome.

What was your most memorable experience or your best memory?

My sophomore year, I got the Homecoming Scholarship and got to be in the parade. I told a couple of friends to keep a lookout for me, and then I was surprised to see all of my residents — I was an RA at the time — and my friends were all screaming at the top of their lungs, “Go Faith!” And even random Iowa City people were cheering for me and yelling congratulations. It’s a super special memory.

What would you tell people about what it means to be a part of the College of Nursing community?

There is so much pride and joy when you walk into the College of Nursing. You walk in and you’re greeted with a sign about it being the No. 8 nursing program in the country. That’s a really big thing that I always brag about.

It’s a very tight-knit community. When I started here, I didn't think that we’d be having classes with the same cohort every single day for two years. And with that, you get to know the same people and get to know their hopes and dreams, what kind of nurses they want to be, why they’re pursuing the kind of nursing that they want. Every single person in my cohort genuinely wants to make the patient experience better and take care of not just the patient, but also their family and friends.

What do you think you got coming here to the University of Iowa College of Nursing that you wouldn’t have gotten if you had gone to another nursing school?

Obviously, our awesome hospital. I’ve done clinicals at the hospital the past two years, and I’ve been a patient care tech for the past six or seven months. Even as a tech or a nursing student, I can talk to the doctors, I can talk to the nursing managers, I can talk to everybody. There’s just this sense of we’re all trying to learn. No one here knows everything perfectly, but we’re all working toward the same thing. 

I was able to do an internship over the summer at the medical intensive care unit. And I feel like if not for that experience, I don’t think I could have really experienced the full breadth of nursing. I was able to see things that I didn’t see in my medical-surgical clinicals. I was able to see a lot of different cases that I don’t think I would have been exposed to at other hospitals. We get the worst of the worst. But after having those experiences, I can go anywhere else and say I experienced some form of this here.

Who was your most important mentor here, and what role did they play in your experience?

I was terrified before my first clinical, medical-surgical. I remember while the med-surg instructor, Kathleen Moulder, was doing the orientation, I was sitting in my seat thinking, “I don’t know if I can do this.”

I asked her if we could talk after class. I told her I didn’t understand pathology. I didn’t understand the body. I didn’t know what’s going on. I just kind of word vomited every single one of my fears to her. I told her it takes me time to learn. I was expecting her to ask, “How did you get into the nursing program?” But no, she didn’t do that at all. Instead, she said, “Take a deep breath. Thank you for being vulnerable with me and telling me this. I want you to be able to learn the way you need and learn at your pace.” She told me we were going to tackle this one week at a time. That was awesome and really stayed with me.

I don’t think that I could have done it without her, honestly.

Who would you like to thank during commencement?

Thank you, Mom, for immigrating over here. I don’t think I could have done this without your pushes and dealing with my phone calls when I didn’t know if I could do this. Thank you so much for everything that you’ve done for me.

Thank you to my family in the Philippines for always being a text message away. I miss you guys a lot. Mahal na mahal ko kayo. [“I love you all so much” in Tagalog.]

Thank you so much to the Scooby-Doobers. They know what that name means. Thank you for always pushing me to get out of my comfort zone and being there for me.

And then thank you so much to Mary. You need to have that one person who understands the nursing school process. So, thank you, Mary, for keeping me sane and grounded and being there for me when I need to talk after clinical.

I love you all. Thank you.