Undergraduate / A Mind for Nursing and Midwifery-UT Austin NURSING TRANSFER Statement of Purpose [3]

Hello ALL! I hope to get some feedback on whether my essay is strong enough in stating my purpose. I feel it needs more impact some how...

Early in my high school career, I applied myself and was chosen to attend the Texas Bioscience Institute at Temple College, a new and exciting middle college program where I could pursue more educational opportunities in health science and biotechnology. In this program, I had a chance to openly explore and acknowledge my growing interests in the medical field. For two years I remained in a setting that exposed me to both theory and practice in my education, medical research, and wonderfully equipped laboratories as well as classrooms. I truly valued and admired the work ethic of my professors who instilled and encouraged the type of thinking that is characteristic of scientists, that is, critical experimental thinking and a keen eye for all things evidence-based. I feel this unique early experience I had in my junior and senior years in high school has groomed me into an individual who is confident and capable in problem solving and in encountering challenges in work. The Texas Bioscience Institute also required many hours of job shadowing in a medical setting, which in turn made me exceedingly familiar with the many avenues my education could take me.

My time spent in the hospital shadowing professionals would produce an intense interest in nursing and also birth. After I graduated from high school, I pondered well and long on how to best utilize my education, but it was not so easy to decide when and where to begin. Above all, I knew I had a scientific mind, a passion for helping people, and an overwhelming desire or feeling of responsibility to do good for humanity (which likely developed from an interest in philosophy.)

You could call what happened to me next a minor set back in my life in terms of formal educational pursuits, or a wonderful experience and education that just cannot be had inside classrooms or within books. It was a very revealing moment in one of the most fragile times of my existence when I discovered I was pregnant and I was going to be a mother. My personal experiences with midwifery and birth would come in, and mix with my passion for an education in nursing. This may not seem a unique experience, but it will always be extremely valuable in terms of deciphering that I would work towards becoming a certified nurse midwife.

My pregnancy was fairly uncomplicated and I proved to be an excellent candidate to be under the care of a certified nurse midwife and to birth my baby at home. One could say this was an atypical birth plan in our modern society, but this is where my scientific thinking emerged and I began to read the evidence-based research to inform myself on a plethora of decisions concerning birth and what is safe and normal. I was moved by midwifery because I had a very empowering birth experience which was beyond my wildest dreams. Birth is beautiful, and it can be normal and safe too, contrary to popular television that has unfortunately contributed a culture of fear in childbirth. My midwife personally educated me, empowered me, gave me the tools to assess risks and to make intelligent decisions. It changed my life by putting me in control of my body, my motherhood, and my baby. It made me grow. The care and expertise which came from my nurse-midwife, attending nurse, and birth doula inspired me. People always remember the care they received and how it made them feel.

I pursued these interests of mine eagerly, and I've gone as far as attending assistant midwife workshops and becoming involved in my community as a doula for expecting families. I feel these experiences and activities of mine follow in that of cultivating compassion for people, which can be considered of the utmost importance for one who is on this career path of nurse midwife. My most fervent wish is to reproduce the intuitive care that I received and to support women and their families in whatever their needs may be.

The University of Texas at Austin is a pioneer in nursing school excellence, research, and success. It is because there is a long history of good work ethic, community service, and progress being made in academic research that I acknowledge an education received at UTA will be integrated, complex, and invaluable to me. I want to receive as much of an understanding and competency of medicine in a medical setting as possible. Diverse nursing programs like at UTA will aide me in my path towards nurse midwifery in hopefully gaining valuable work experience as an L&D nurse working under doctors who see a volume and variety of births.