Laura DiVenti shares her story about transferring to ASU
Laura DiVenti’s academic career has been a meandering journey that has finally brought her to where she really wants to be: currently studying for a BSN online at Arizona State University while working full-time as a public health nurse for the University of Arizona.
“I have always held on to the hope that some- day I would be good enough to be in nursing school,” she says. That hope became a reality in 2008 when she enrolled in Mesa Community College and graduated in March of 2010 with an AAS in Nursing under the ADN pathway.
Prior to that, after graduating from high school in 1995 in Illinois, DiVenti attended Rock Valley College in Rockford, where she earned an associate degree. Then she transferred over to Illinois State University, where she studied for one and a half years and “pretty much almost flunked out,” she says. DiVenti then reversed transferred to Rock Valley College to take some core science courses that could help in her quest to possibly get accepted into a 4-year nursing program. “I went back to the community college for the smaller classes and more individualized attention, so I could get the grades I needed,” she adds.
She wound up getting accepted at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but not in nursing. So, she changed her focus and graduated with bachelor’s degree in psychology in 2003. About three years later she gave birth to her daughter, who is now five years old. After “a very rough pregnancy,” DiVenti was faced with “major postpartum depression” that led to a divorce, and moving to Arizona, while leaving her daughter behind, to live with her Mom to heal.
All was not lost, however. The now 34-year- old DiVenti has turned a seemingly hopeless situation into a strong pathway toward success. “In the past five years I have rebuilt my life from having nothing to becoming an RN,” she explains. “Getting my ADN was the biggest accomplishment of my life, and my daughter [with whom she now has a close relationship] was there to see me graduate. With her as my light, I was able to make it through the darkest days of my life.”
DiVenti says that transferring to ASU was “a natural and effortless stepping stone. All the credits I needed in courses such as chemistry, microbiology, anatomy, and physiology came from all the schools I attended. I did not have to re-take any classes and have been able to focus entirely on my BSN program. It was a great experience at Mesa Community College. Everyone there worked with me to make sure that my credits transferred over and that I was always on the right track.”
“I am proof that one should never give up on their hopes and dreams,” she continues. That includes someday earning a master’s degree in public health and working with post partum women to “give back in the form of service to my community everything that has been given to me.”
Student profiles courtesy of George Lorenzo, (Oct. 9. 2011). Eight Transfer Student Success Stories in Progress. The SOURCE on Community College Issues, Trends & Strategies.