Scholarship Winner – Jennifer Bonaventure

BND: What helped you decide to go into the nursing career?

Jennifer: I chose to go into nursing because I really wanted to help people. My dream was to always work in labor and delivery and I finally, I’ve been working there now for almost 4 years. So that’s been really rewarding.

BND: What role do you currently play in labor and delivery?

Jennifer: Right now, I’m an RN. I obtained my bachelor’s from Southeastern in 2010 and I’m actually in school pursuing my degree in midwifery.

BND: How has your experience helped you prepare to enter a Masters program?

Jennifer: Just the exposure, there were things that I didn’t know obviously with regard to labor and delivery before I became involved in that role. There were things I didn’t know happened in labor and delivery. It’s just been an eye-opener and further solidified my desire to become a midwife.

BND: What is your vision for the future of nursing?

Jennifer: I would really like to see a lot more in the way of community education and better preparing our nurses to go out and care for those patients in the community. I’ve had a lot of information given to me during this term in school and I’m really starting to see that preventative care is extremely important. And it’s not something that a lot of people do. A lot of people see health care as something to go to whenever you’re already having problems, not something to prevent those issues.

BND: What tips for success can you share with those who are thinking about entering a midwifery program?

Jennifer: Well one of the things about Frontier Nursing in particular that was really helpful was their “Frontier-Bound” program. We had to go out to the school for four days and we got to attend little mini-sessions that told us what they were going to expect – It’s really very clearly outlined.

And then, not all of the midwifery programs (in Louisiana) will be applicable to the state. There were other midwifery programs that I had looked into that wouldn’t help me practice midwifery in Louisiana.

BND: We’d like to inform you that you are, in fact, the April 2015 winner of the “Back to School” Scholarship from Best Nursing Degree!

Jennifer: I’m really excited that I won! That’s incredible, I didn’t expect to win! I really appreciate the opportunity from the scholarship, it’s really going to make an impact. This is gonna reduce my student loan debt that I’m going to have when I graduate. So that’s going to be very helpful!