BrainTrack Announces Nursing Scholarship Winners for Spring 2011
Winners from Southeast Hospital College of Nursing & Health Sciences and Austin Community College Offer Advice to Future Students
MARLBOROUGH, MA, May 23, 2011 - BrainTrack, a widely referenced higher-education and career resource, announced today the Spring 2011 winners of its BrainTrack Nursing Schools Scholarship, a twice yearly scholarship for nursing degree students that is intended to help future students. The winners are Heather Alana Kyle of Southeast Health College of Nursing and Health Sciences in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, who received the $1,000 first-place award, and Amber Keller of Austin Community College in Austin, Texas, who received a $500 second-place award.
"The essay responses from all the entrants offer valuable insights for those considering a career in nursing," explains David Siegel, Vice President of Operations with BrainTrack's publisher, Futuremeld, LLC. "Selections from all of our entries will be published on our site. The winners were selected based on the creativity, usefulness and thoughtfulness of their essays."
Winners Stress the Value of Related Experiences
Heather Alana Kyle, winner of the first-place award, is working toward her associate's degree in nursing. She advises future nursing students to get experience as a nurse's aide before going to nursing school and to continue working in the field up until graduation. As she puts it, "Although there is a critical shortage of nurses, no one wants to hire the graduate nurse who has no experience." According to Heather, doing well in school is important, but gaining on-the-job experience is vital.
Heather also offered a number of practical tips for studying, including one that the judges found interesting involving the use of a pen technology that synchronizes written notes with a recording of a lecture.
Like Heather, second-place winner Amber Keller is in school for an associate's degree in nursing. Amber also stresses the importance of acquiring as much work experience as possible before graduating. She believes it is important to get a feel for nursing to make sure it's the right career field for a student. As far as studying is concerned, Amber believes that good organization skills are paramount to success in nursing school. This is especially the case for busy adult students that are trying to juggle school, work, and children. She also suggests getting help from friends and family. She writes: "Practice taking everyone’s temperature, blood pressure, give a mock sponge bath, and make the bed around someone... Having to explain a topic to someone who knows nothing about it, in a way that they can understand it, is an excellent study tool."
The winning essay entries as well as a summary of useful tips offered by entrants, are published in BrainTrack's Nursing Student Stories section.
About BrainTrack's Nursing Schools Scholarships for 2011
The entry deadline for BrainTrack's Fall 2011 Nursing Schools Scholarship is November 1, 2011. Entrants are asked to answer essay questions that are focused on helping others evaluate nursing as a potential career path. BrainTrack publishes a collection of those essays as a resource for prospective students.
The scholarship is open to students currently attending school and who have at least one semester of credits towards graduation with an appropriate degree in nursing. Students can be enrolled full-time, part-time, on-campus, or online at an accredited US college. There are no entry fees and all entrant names and contact information will be kept private for use only in the scholarship, with the exception that winners names and schools will be published.
Scholarship rules and details are available in BrainTrack's Nursing Schools section.
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About BrainTrack
Since 1996, BrainTrack has provided an online, worldwide university and college directory that inlcudes more than 10,000 higher-education institutions in over 190 countries. Visitors are helped in academic and career decisions through its content, including thousands of original and detailed school profiles, guides to U.S. colleges by career, U.S. colleges by religion, and articles that explore financial aid, accreditation, transfers, and more. BrainTrack is referenced by thousands of websites, including major universities and colleges, government agencies, libraries and publications. BrainTrack is produced and maintained by FutureMeld LLC.