Life After Mac: Real stories of alumni finding their way — Rania
“Just because things don’t work out the way you wanted them to, does not mean they are not working out the way they are supposed to.”
My experiences with this quote is what I will be sharing with you. The past few years have been filled with unexpected twists and turns.
A piece of advice I will share with you is to never give up and to continue to work towards your goals. Ever since grade 10 I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in Nursing. However, in the same year I moved to Canada from Greece and found that education here was very different. I found it challenging and I struggled to achieve a high average in school. Right after high school I applied for the nursing program in both universities and colleges, unfortunately I did not get an admissions acceptance from any of the schools that I applied to. I remember being devastated thinking that I will never become a nurse. I did however get accepted to complete my BA at McMaster. This ended up being an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to experience different classes and ended up majoring in Gerontology and Health Studies. Completing this program reaffirmed that I love to work with people and that I wanted to pursue a career in health care.
In my fourth year I decided to apply to the nursing accelerated program. I got to the final round of the application process but did not make it past the interview. Again, I was devastated to learn that I would not be able to pursue my dream career and I felt like a failure. But I did not give up.
The following year I worked as a Recreation Therapists in hopes of gaining experience in the healthcare field. I loved this job and ended up learning so much from the experience. I decided to reapply to the nursing program and joined the wait-list. Two weeks before the start date I got the news that I was accepted to Nursing school.
In 2018, I completed the Nursing accelerated program at Nipissing Scholar Practitioner Program in Toronto. I am now a Registered Nurse working in Toronto. My position is called Nursing Resource Team which involves getting trained on the surgical and medicine floors within Toronto General Hospital and Toronto Western Hospital. I float to different floors such as Spine/ Neurosurgery; Cardiovascular surgery Ear/nose/throat; Gynecology/urology; General Internal Medicine; General Surgery; and Thoracics. It is a challenging position but I am learning and seeing so much. I have never been happier, to see how far I’ve come and to know that I finally made it.
When I look back I am happy things happened the way they did because I do not think I was ready to get into nursing when I had wanted to. Nursing has a lot of challenges, critical thinking, advocating, sad times, and many aspects that I was not ready to understand back then. But my degree at McMaster helped me uncover my passion and the nursing program helped me flourish. After my nursing program I truly felt prepared that I was at a time in my life to start this great career.
So a piece of advice to anyone other there, DON’T GIVE UP. Just because one thing doesn’t go your way there are many different paths you can take to achieve your dreams! :)
Rania Naser
Bachelor of Arts, Gerontology and Health Studies ‘15
The McMaster Alumni Association will be featuring recent grad’s career stories to show career paths are anything but linear. If you graduated in the last 10 years and are interested in sharing yours, submit your story by clicking here.
If you are looking to get started on your own journey, take advantage of the resources available to recent graduates through our partnership with the Student Success Centre.
