Colleen Wonder

I am a non-traditional student who pursued nursing as a second career, after a successful career as an Interior Designer. Life experiences with caring for a son who experienced numerous small bowel obstructions and many surgeries, and my mother who was successful in beating breast cancer but lost her life to Congestive Heart Failure as a side effect of the chemotherapy treatments, led me to a path of caring and wanting to do more with my life in order to enhance the lives of others. I chose to give back to other people, and enhance my own life in the process. I chose Penn State University to pursue my nursing career. This was the only college I chose to apply to. My thought process was, "If God does not want me to pursue this career, I will not be accepted". I was accepted by Penn State, and immediately enrolled. For the past 6 years I have worked full-time as a unit secretary, then a registered nurse while attending school full-time for the first four years, now part-time for my final year.