Welcome President Dimmock, distinguished guest, faculty members, and audience. It is a great honor to have you here to celebrate this special day with us. Cohort 5, class of 2014, WE MADE IT!! This has been a long journey for us. Honestly, we never thought this day would ever come. We prayed for its quick arrival; we’ve crossed out months from our calendars down to today. We counted hours, minutes and even the seconds. So finally that time has now arrived, here we are; we can proudly claim the BSN title behind our name, and we cannot forget that all of this was made possible through Chamberlain. When I made the decision to leave my military career behind for nursing school all those who had gone before issued me several warnings: they pretty …show more content…
Most of us struggled financially, leading some to foreclosure and even evictions. Some of us are raising children as a single parent and one graduate unexpectedly suffered the loss of her husband but she didn’t cave in to the grief. Many of us, if not all of us, have at one point during nursing school gone through depression. I can remember that there were days when I would pull in the parking lot and wonder how I will make it through another class, another SIM, another lab, another clinical. And I would look around and see each one of you getting out of your cars putting one foot in front of the other determined to make it to class, determined to make it to another SIM, determined to make it to another lab, determined to make it to another clinical. I was inspired by your passion to reach your goals in spite of everything you go through in your personal …show more content…
Thank you to the many people in our lives who encouraged us to soar. We would like to thank you the countless mothers, fathers, husbands, boyfriends, wives, girlfriends, life partners, children, grandparents, family and friends who are here today with shoulders heavy from our tears. You gave us immeasurable support and encouraged us to continue when we thought we could not. You listened to our nursing stories, participated as live patients so we can practice our skill, and you kept us sane when we thought we had lost our minds. You made sure we saw our dream to completion, and for that we are eternally grateful. We also want to thank our school faculty starting with our President, Dr. Dimmock. I remember during orientation Dr. Dimmock told us that she is here for us and that she cares for us. Those were not empty words, she kept that promise. Dr. Dimmock kept an open door policy and never refused any of us, she gave us her personal cell phone number, where we can reach her 24 hours. I don’t know any other school President who would do that, and even after her mom went to heaven; Dr. Dimmock came back immediately to fight for us. Many of us would not be here if it was not for Dr.