Navajo Career Aspirations

I am greatly involved with extracurricular activities such as Upward Bound, Gear- Up, Student Council on which I have been positioned as the Student Body President, Family, Career, Community Leaders of America (FCCLA), cross country, basketball manager, performing arts, and track & field. I am also third rank in my class with a 3.7 GPA. I take concurrent enrollment classes such as Medical Terminology and Medical Anatomy, along with an EMT training class I am taking on the side of school. Like most kids on the reservation I am greatly involved with hard work; chopping woods, hauling water, herding sheep, maintaining the livestock, and participating in ceremonies. Then on my free time I love to run; the feeling of being free, writing, reading,

When I finish up my education from college I plan to come back home to the reservation. I want to work across the reservation, especially my own community. My local clinic does not have much of nurses working for them and I feel like it is my job to become one. There is another thing why I am interested in Nursing and that’s to make a difference, not many Native Americans are known to make a difference. I want to be the Navajo student who graduated from college and made a name for herself. Also there is hardly means of communication when it comes to speaking the Navajo language, considering there is a lot of geriatric patients coming into local clinics and off-reservation hospitals. They don’t know certain meaning of what the doctor is telling them. I want to be that Nurse who can respond to those elders and help them understand. In my culture our elders are sacred to us and with helping them, it’s like being blessed. There is a lot I want to do on the Navajo Nation. I know with becoming a Nurse I will have access to knowing more about certain situations that can happen within and without the body. I will have the knowledge to know what to do and what not to do as a health professional. Also I know it will be very beneficial in the future because I know I will helping and making a