CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Getting through grueling coursework to earn your degree in nursing can be immensely challenging. One Corpus Christi mother and daughter are doing it together- motivating one another and helping each other persevere and remain headstrong when the fatigue set in.
Friday, their hard work will pay off as they walk the stage together at Del Mar College's graduation.
Claudia Martinez and her daughter Selina Flores are Level 4 Nurse Education students at Del Mar College. After taking together the Test of Essential Academic Skills (TEAS), which is a standardized examination for students applying for nursing school in the United States, they began the College’s nursing program simultaneously, DMC's news service reports.
Flores shared with the college what it’s meant to have her mother with her through this experience.
“I wouldn't have chosen anybody but [my mom] to be with me,” Flores told DMC's Digital Services Coordinator Jessie Chrobocinski. “I know that we pushed each other the entire way. We morphed each other; we cried with each other, but yet, we persisted, and we made it through.”
“Nursing school is a challenge,” Martinez told DMC. “[Fortunately], we have been able to study together. It was difficult in the beginning because we had different ways of studying. We found where we could meet in the middle, and it worked for us. I think that's why we're both in the honor society for nursing school, which is not an easy thing to do.”
Both were pinned as nurses Tuesday night at the College’s Nurse Education Department during a pinning ceremony at Richardson Performance Hall and recited the Florence Nightingale Pledge. Both Flores and Martinez are among the 17 students in their graduating class of 69 who are 2022 inductees of Alpha Delta Nu Nursing Honor Society.
“Knowing that [my daughter is] finally coming to the end of that rainbow and that I’m able to walk it with her, I was there when she came into the world, and this is a new beginning for us. It’s really amazing. It’s beyond words,” Martinez said.
The College’s first in-person commencement ceremony in more than two years begins at 7 p.m. on Friday, May 20, where the two will officially be on their way to beginning their post-degree nursing careers.
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