Until the tumultuous year of 2020, nursing school graduates could look forward to securing a regular nursing job, treating regular patients, and living a regular life.

Then, a global pandemic happened and promptly erased the “regular” from everything.

This is the year that recent grads learned that no matter how hands-on their university experience was, there’s no experience like the real world, especially when the COVID-19 virus began handing out life lessons faster than bottles of hand sanitizer disappeared from grocery store shelves.

New career pathways

Take the experience of Devon Curtis, who earned her bachelor of science in nursing (BSN) degree from Indiana University Northwest in 2017. She had been working as a cardiac nurse in Los Angeles when she suddenly found herself reassigned to a COVID-19 unit at Memorial Hospital in South Bend. As a traveling nurse, she will soon move on again, to another COVID-19 crisis relief position in Reno, Nevada.

“Even with preparation, you truly cannot begin to comprehend what the environment will feel like until you’re standing in it,” Curtis said about the early days of the pandemic. “Every day, and sometimes within a shift, brings something new. New studies, new guidelines, new treatments, new protocols, revised treatments, changed protocols, new data; it’s constantly evolving.”

Four months later, she reports that “things are still pretty high-intensity,” but that “we are able to handle patients significantly better with all the advancements in treatments.”

But there’s another surprising effect that COVID-19 had on Curtis. It led her to discover new career pathways she had never thought of before—options she wouldn’t have discovered without her COVID-19 nursing experience.

“Now I am trying to decide which direction I plan to follow for graduate school,” Curtis said. “I may pursue a career as a nurse practitioner, or become a nursing educator, or take it in a different direction and go to law school with a focus on healthcare policy. I have even considered applying to a healthcare engineering program.”

Experiencing the nursing profession during a pandemic, Curtis says, has sparked a passion in bettering the science of nursing as a whole. Nurses need a louder voice in some of the nation's most pressing healthcare issues, she says, in situations in which they are the brunt of the frontline.

Driven by desire, propelled by education

This is exactly what higher education in nursing is built for, says Associate Professor Crystal Shannon, who also serves as associate director of the graduate program in the School of Nursing.

Like Curtis, but without a pandemic, Shannon developed additional passions while caring for patients on the frontlines early in her nursing career. While working as a perinatal nurse, her understanding of her role in healthcare delivery and a desire to support her community expanded, driving Shannon to seek additional education and opportunities. She went on to pursue case management, community and public health, reproductive endocrinology, nursing management and now, nursing education.

“It was through education that I learned more about what I could do to really help my community,” Shannon said. “It did not stop there. Life-long learning has continued to support my ever-developing nursing career and knowledge. My journey is still evolving, and I appreciate the road and every lesson learned.”

New respect for disaster training

Kenneth Haluska, who earned his IU Northwest nursing degree in 2019, went to work on a medical-surgical unit at Community Hospital in Munster. He never imagined that less than a year on the job, he’d find himself suiting up in full personal protective equipment (PPE) to treat his first COVID-19 patient.

“At the time, nobody on my unit had swabbed any patient for COVID-19, and wearing all of the required PPE still felt like a simulation from nursing school,” Haluska explained. “As a unit, our nurses and aides had to grow and adapt daily.”

At a time when even the most experienced physicians are navigating uncharted territory, Haluska knows his school gave him the tools to approach the unknown with skills and confidence.

“My professors really stressed patient assessments,” he said. “At the end of the day, even during a pandemic, all you can do is rely on your nursing assessment skills and your instincts. I am grateful that IU Northwest placed us in simulated scenarios, and the hospital environment, early and often.”

As part of their training, IU Northwest students participate in disaster simulations with the American Red Cross. The professors measure students’ simulated disaster response all the way from the beginning to the end of nursing school.

“While no one wants a pandemic, or any disaster, I’m pleased to know that our curriculum has paid off for the alumni in the field right now,” said Shannon.” These students can now draw upon our foundational skills, add their own lived experience, and launch themselves into their next great journey.”

A pandemic’s hidden blessings

In addition to lessons in skills and confidence, the COVID-19 battlefield has been replete with lessons in humanity, too.

“I have cared for heart-breaking cases that I will remember for the rest of my career,” Curtis said. “Likewise, I have witnessed joyous recoveries. I am so blessed to experience the camaraderie of medical professionals during a time like this. The good days, the crazy days, and the sad days—the support is unreal.”

“Through working this pandemic,” Curtis said, “I have learned that I’m a part of something that’s so much bigger than myself. I am a nurse. I’ve never been prouder of my profession.”