Shawn Reed
Bossier City, LA
Excelsior College®, Associate of Science in Nursing
It wasn’t until later in his career that Shawn Reed knew what he wanted to do. “I graduated high school and started working various jobs. I met my wife and got married,” Shawn said. Desperate for a career change, Shawn decided to go back to school. “My mom and my aunt were both nurses. Originally when I went to nursing school, it was just to escape the hard labor, out in the weather, and all that with the jobs that I was working,” Shawn admitted.
“As I went through school and got into clinicals, I found that compassion to want to help people and I really enjoyed it. I made it through school and started working at one of the local hospitals here in town. I worked there for about three years. I went and started doing some agency work at one of the larger hospitals in town, working in different facilities and different areas,” Shawn said.
“When I went to school I got my LPN. I’ve been an LPN for 14 years. I’ve had a lot of friends who have gone back and done the campus based programs and got their RNs,” Shawn explained. He decided to do the same but was overcome by other occurences in his life.
“The week that I was in orientation we had our first son. Two years later we had our daughter. So, with family and kids, I couldn’t afford to give up my full-time job to be able to go back and be a full time student,” he explained.
“I ran across The College Network® online doing some research. I heard of a couple of programs offering online for LPNs that wanted to continue their education. The one thing I noticed about the module is that it was completely comprehensive and it covered everything. The key words were really good because it’s like any of your college exams where you have your definitions so you can prepare for the test. You learn to decipher and be able to prepare for the tests appropriately,” Shawn said.
Shawn developed a study plan to help prepare him for the exams. “What I would do is answer the question and write it down on a piece of paper. Then I would check all my answers with the answers in the module. I took my first test and passed it and moved on to the next one,” he said, while also admitting to a challenge he faced. “I kind of fell off my timeline a little bit because holidays were busy, but that’s the good thing about this. You can afford to take a month or two off and then jump back on it and take a couple [exams] real fast in a row to get back on schedule.”
“That’s what drew me to this program. I can work it around my schedule, whenever I have time, and that’s something that wasn’t available before. I always had to try and come up with a way to work my schedule around a school’s schedule, and it just wasn’t working. It wasn’t conducive to what I had to do as a full time dad, employee and a husband. I would definitely recommend this to anybody who has found life getting in the way. This is definitely something you can work around to further your education and make a better life,” Shawn stated.
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