For the first cohort of Lamar Institute of Technology’s accelerated nursing program, the past 16 months at the Beaumont campus came with uncertainty, pressure, and persistence—and ended with students receiving their pins, symbolizing completion of the program.
Class president Angel Swallow Lewis reflected on the experience, saying, “We walked into the unknown.” She described the early days of the program as challenging, adding, “There was no frame, no reassurance. Everything was missing.” Lewis said there were moments of “frustration, fear and doubt,” but “it was perseverance.”
Lewis said the program helped her build skills such as perseverance and learning to adapt, preparing her for what comes next. “I have a script in a position to understand Elizabeth Hospital in their trauma masters department. I’ll start in June. So before I even graduated, I accepted the position,” she said.
Lewis said 20 of the program’s 30 students also accepted new jobs.
She credited the faculty for helping students succeed. “The faculty has been amazing. They help us. They have pushed us through, and they have made it to where we were able to understand everything that they taught us, and it was just a real good, smooth, easy ride,” Lewis said.
Lewis also pointed to the program’s affordability and accelerated courses as factors that can make a career change into health care possible. “I’ve been at LVM for 11 years, but anyone that has no medical experience can just come through, a 16-month program for an hour in a future associate’s degree,” she said. “And it’s a small class that started with 30. What’s better? It’s more personal that way.”
Lewis said the program’s structure helped students balance school with responsibilities outside the classroom. “You’re able to be a mom or dad,” she said. “You’re able to work and still have a life.”
Lewis said life does not stop when people start chasing their dreams, and she said the program helped shape her into the nurse and leader she hopes to become.