At the age of 30, Anna Maria Rodriguez looked in the mirror and found herself looking at a recently divorced mom working four dead-end jobs. She wasn’t going anywhere and her future appeared as bright as a starless night.
“I knew I couldn’t keep doing this,” she said.
With that in mind, the firstgeneration American applied for the third time to nursing school at Ranger College. This time, she said, it was going to be a charm for her.
On Dec. 4, 2020, now at the age of 42, she stood in front of a quiet auditorium filled with only her peers and instructors and changed her future by receiving her Associates of Applied Science degree and became a Registered Nurse. Rodriguez was among more than 100 Ranger College students walking away from the socially-distanced commencement ceremony with a degree or a Certificate of Completion.
The degree gave her a new path – and the skills she will need to succeed.
“I had to find a way to provide for my family,” said Rodriguez. “I had no choice but to do it. I decided to become a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN). I loved it so much why don’t I go be an RN.”
Rodriguez, who twice before had been accepted into nursing school, said her mother, Alicia Saldivar, actually paved her way to becoming a nurse – and made her the second generation of her family to receive a nursing degree from the institution.
“I knew about Ranger College’s nursing program through my mother. She had gone to school here in about 1983 to become a nurse. She had told me about the college, and that really led me to applying to nursing school,” she said. “The third time was a charm for me.”
“Now I have the opportunity to go work in a hospital, making more money,” she said. “Eventually, I want to be a traveling nurse. And now I can get my daughter through college.”
The daughter of Saldivar and a Mexican national, she lives in Dublin with her daughter, Navalee.
Rodriguez was among a handful of RC students honored during the ceremony, which was held in the college’s spacious new auditorium with no outside spectators. Also honored were sophomore Stephon Turner, who merited the college’s Student of the Year honors, and Bailey Watkins.
Watkins, who received her Associate’s of Applied Science degree, said becoming an RN was a dream she didn’t envision for herself as recently as a few months ago. She admitted shortly after enrolling in nursing to sitting in a parking lot telling her parents she wasn’t sure if she could finish.
“They had two choices,” she said. “They could coddle me or they could tell me to suck it up. Thankfully, they gave me some tough love.”
Ranger College President Dr. William J. Campion congratulated each of the graduates for their efforts, and for persevering through a tough year that saw students constantly adjusting their schedules due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For all you have overcome and accomplished, we are so proud of you,” he said.
—submitted