Courage Is Switching Careers Right After Graduating

| Alexandra, 23, MIA

When we are young, we believe that we have our whole lives figured out. First, we have to graduate from high school and then study some great career in college to become very successful people. Everybody knows that. But what happens when some random event of our present changes everything in our future?

It may sound like the perfect script for a successful telenovela, the ones we see when we get home from work. But in reality, that's my story.

A few years ago, when I decided to graduate from Media Management, I thought it was the best decision I would make in my life. Although everything was perfect and I was working close to home, my family realized that even though I was having positive results, this was not what made me really happy.

The only obstacle in this situation was that I still did not realize what was happening. But life would make sure that I understood my true purpose, after suffering a very frightening family episode.

My sister Stephanie and I have always been very close, so when I discovered that she was pregnant with twin girls, I was overwhelmed with joy. Just imagine those princesses filling us with happiness, my heart began to beat very fast.

Even though the pregnancy was going really well, my sister had to give birth to my nieces after only 32 weeks of pregnancy. To see their little lives in danger completely shattered the perfect cloud that I was living on. (Read Stephanie's story here)

Although the fact of being in the hospital taking care of my sister and my nieces was extremely exhausting, being there made me rethink my purpose in life. Discovering the great work that nurses do with patients and the great support they provide to their families is something I will never forget and motivated me to make the decision to start a new work project.

Yes. I was determined to become a nurse. If that really made sense.

Despite having made the decision, executing it was going to be a bit tricky. To become a nurse, I had to pursue a scientific career, which was very different from Media Management. I had to figure out exactly what I needed to do so that everything would have a successful outcome. The first thing I did was understand very well the story of each of the nurses who took care of my nieces. Listening firsthand to the pros and cons of their stories would make the decision much easier.

Then, I visited a psychologist. Through her, I was able to channel my academic fears, because we have to be aware that there are many psychological and physical elements that are necessary to practice as a nurse, which don’t apply to a media manager.

Right now I’m taking the requirements for nursing school and if everything goes well, I will be joining Florida International University as a student next year.

I must confess that, although this process has been accelerated and is very new to me, having this type of adrenaline again in my life makes me feel complete.

While it is frightening to start a new project with the possibility of failing, when we truly focus on reaching our goals, all that fear vanishes. When you want to achieve new things in life, everything will be oriented to achieve it.

Starting from scratch is worth it.