WCU-Texas BSN student Hailey O. has always known she wanted to go into healthcare, but she didn’t know exactly how she was going to approach it. Nursing wasn’t the original plan. In fact, after she graduated high school, she began pursuing a degree in health sciences with aspirations of becoming a physician assistant. The more she learned about the healthcare field, however, the more she realized nursing better aligned with her long-term goals.
“I want to be on the patient side,” Hailey said about her reasons to pursue nursing. “I want to be advocating for the patient in there with them, you know.”
Nursing checked every career checkbox that mattered to Hailey. Being a lifelong fan of the TV show “Gray’s Anatomy,” she has always been fascinated with healthcare and the human body. Additionally, after witnessing firsthand the uncertainty caused by the 2008 market crash, she also wanted a job that provided financial stability. Nurses, she figured, are always needed.
Having found a career that both matched her passions and met her more practical concerns, she began looking for nursing schools in her hometown of Ontario, California. That’s when she found the Bachelor of Science in Nursing program at West Coast University.
A big reason why she chose WCU-Ontario is its focus on nursing. “I know nursing is what I want to do,” she said, “And I don’t want to mess around and spend any other time not pursuing it … West Coast University just seemed like the best option to have everything that I wanted to do in a timely manner.”
Hailey pivoted from health sciences to nursing, changing schools in the process. However, there was one more big change awaiting her in the future: moving to Texas.
Hailey’s husband, who is originally from Texas, chose not to re-enlist in the military since doing so risked getting stationed elsewhere while Hailey was still in school. This opened up the possibility of moving out of California — an option they had long considered, but the priority was still ensuring that Hailey could finish her nursing degree.
Luckily, they had one option left: Hailey’s husband happened to be from a town near Dallas that was driving distance from the WCU-Texas campus. It was an unexpected but fortuitous coincidence. During a visit to see his family, his grandmother drove Hailey to see the campus, and this wild idea of moving across states began to take shape.
Starting the transfer process was easier than she thought. Hailey explained, “I reached out to my student advisor, and I was like, ‘Hey, this is kind of my idea of what I want to do. Would this even be possible?’ … And she was like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s totally possible.’”
Hailey officially transferred to WCU-Texas in 2023. Now settled into her new life in a new state, she is getting closer to finishing her degree and becoming a registered nurse.
Check out what she said about her experience so far!
Q&A With Hailey
WCU: What was your first impression of the WCU-Texas campus?
Hailey: It’s huge. I mean, just being able to have the café on the bottom floor! And then we have different study rooms, and I think the library there is awesome … It takes up half the second floor.
WCU: The WCU-Texas cohort is smaller than what you’ve encountered in the past. What has that been like?
Hailey: We work together. We text each other outside of class. I would say, for the most part, everyone knows everyone’s name in our cohort. … I feel like our cohort just constantly wants to make each other better and constantly prepare ourselves for getting into the nursing career.
WCU: What was your experience transferring from Ontario to Texas?
Hailey: I worked very closely with the lead of the clinical faculty at the Texas campus, and then I worked with my student advisor at the Ontario campus to kind of get the transfer rolling. … They made it super easy and just gave me a step-by-step of what I needed to get done. I ended up having to take a little bit more time with moving and getting adjusted. So I even delayed it one more term than I wanted to, and they were just super gracious, super willing to work with me on whatever I needed to do.
WCU: What had been your favorite part about moving to a new state?
Hailey: We’ve spent some time in downtown Dallas, and we’ve spent some time in Fort Worth. There’s just so much culture and a mix of individuals here, which I think is really cool. Everyone kind of comes together in this one place to make it better — hopefully make it better — for the future. … I’ve been to all the major Texas cities now and have been able to explore a little bit. So, it’s been good.
WCU: There’s been one more development in your family’s journey: Your husband has now started his nursing degree at WCU! What has that been like?
Hailey: We carpool on Tuesdays, so it’s a lot of fun. My class starts a little bit earlier than he does, and he gets out a little bit later. So, we both use that time to study, look over notes, anything like that. We’ve been able to make it work a lot better than I thought it would originally, and I think our working together toward a common goal has been really good for our relationship and for growing individually.
WCU: Did he know he wanted to go into nursing when he met you?
Hailey: He never even had nursing on his radar. He automatically enlisted after high school and had kind of written off college. He tried to get into a fire department whenever we moved back here. It didn’t end up working out. Everything that he had learned about the fire department and paramedics — what their job is — he was like, ‘I really like this. I really like helping people this way.’ And I was like, ‘You know, what paramedics can do, nurses can do.’ A lot of it overlaps.
He started looking more into it, looking at my notes, kind of seeing how it was, and he just decided that this was what he wanted to do.
WCU provides career guidance and assistance but cannot guarantee employment. The views and opinions expressed are those of the individuals and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs or position of the school or of any instructor or student.
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