Ashley Rivera, Health Science
Ashley Rivera took a state test in Colombia to qualify for a medicine program. She was subsequently heartbroken to find out that she missed the threshold by just one point.
Rather than dwelling on the setback, Rivera started working toward her goal of helping as many people as she possibly could. She soon found herself in a local nursing program, and this time would be different for her: she was going to get through the program and its clinical requirements no matter what.
Not even COVID-19 could go head-to-head with her steely determination.
“My first clinical practice started in the middle of the pandemic,” Rivera said. “My university gave us the choice of doing no clinical trials during the pandemic and then kind of catching up later or even completely dropping out of the classes that have clinical (requirements) and just completing the general courses. I was thinking about dropping the courses because my parents weren’t comfortable with me being in the middle of the pandemic, and I wasn’t really comfortable either, but I was like, ‘There’s no way that I’m dropping this.’
“Everything was super tense at the time — we as students had to cover up with an N95 mask, face shields and everything, and it all really put me to the test in the best way possible. Despite having all of these challenges, like helping multiple patients who were in quarantine in the hospital and having to provide care for them, it helped me to get over my fear.”
She eventually transferred to Stockton University in 2022 and started the Health Sciences program. Rivera, who was by now used to university life, was a commuter student who went to class and went home. She knew, however, that she wanted to become more active on campus, as Stockton was a second chance for her to engage in campus life. The first friend she made in Stockton told her about TALONS — Transition Activity Leaders of New Students.
“Everything was super tense at the time... and it all really put me to the test in the best way possible. Despite having all of these challenges, like helping multiple patients who were in quarantine in the hospital and having to provide care for them, it helped me to get over my fear.”
“Being a TALONS and helping other students who are also transferring and had questions about everything reminded me of how the TALONS helped me when I transferred here,” Rivera said. “I made even more friends in the summer, meeting all of the incoming students and helping them out. Some of the students still talk to me and ask, ‘Can you help me check out my schedule?’ and stuff, and I always say, ‘Absolutely!’”
Her time at Stockton is defined by the number of friendships and support she received as an undergraduate student. Through obstacles such as bouts of culture shock and homesickness, she has been able to lean on her network to keep moving forward. Her time as a TALONS made her fall in love with Stockton, and she says that she’ll miss everything about it.
“I'm going to miss Lake Fred. I'm going to miss my friends who aren’t graduating yet. I'm going to miss F101 (Student Transition Programs), my boss (Candace Mitchell) and all of the shenanigans we did,” Rivera said.
While there are many great things to look back on in her journey, Rivera also has a lot to look forward to, such as attending Boston College for graduate school, continuing to make fiber art creations (“I love embroidery and crochet, and I’m currently learning how to knit,”) and even becoming trilingual by learning Japanese.
In the meantime, here are her words of advice for any incoming Ospreys that are unsure of the path ahead of them:
“Don’t just shut down any opportunity that you get – I didn’t want to go into nursing because I was set on medicine. It was a really hard decision to make, but, in the end, I am very happy that I made that decision because I fell in love with nursing, and that's what I want to do for the rest of my life,” Rivera shared. “Don’t close doors that are opening for you because they’re opening for a reason.”
