At the time I found out about Northwest University, I was actually working at Microsoft and I remember sitting in my little cubicle staring at the gray, you know, felt and just thinking to myself, God, there has to be something more than this. And it may sound crazy leaving, you know, Microsoft, this big tech company, but I just didn't have that sense of purpose there. And I didn't feel like I was really living out that call on my life. So I started to look around and looking for schools and and came across Northwest University. And, you know, I read I went to their website, I read their mission, and I really just fell in love with the school. And I think looking back now, it was it's kind of funny because I think Northwest University found me. I think it was really God sort of inviting me into the school to do the things that I'm doing.
I think Northwest's nursing program, the Buntain School of nursing, as it's called, is unique and special in that it has a couple of components that I think help set it apart. One is that it has a decidedly Christian focus and there's no apologies made for that. And it is a clear distinctive.
We definitely are a true Christian university and Christian program that we as faculty, that we integrate our faith. We hope to role model that to our students. And so a distinctive is that we really do focus on being servant leaders as Christians, that we are seeking to care for the whole person, that we go out as students. I see students serving the staff that they're working with. And I think that's unique to our students is that we get a lot of compliments from the staff that we work with in the hospitals. That they often see our students as different in a good way. And so, and I believe that is, that their servants heart to really be Christ in their setting.
Northwest is a great option. It's a bachelor's program. So you get your bachelor's degree. And the culture of nursing right now is heading that way. If people have their associate's degree, hospitals want them to go back to school and get their bachelor's degree. If you go to Northwest, you get your bachelor's degree when you graduate.
And it just looks really good when, through the hiring process, it's going to put you ahead of other people. Integrated into the core of the program is that requirement and the opportunity to travel internationally. It is, as far as I know, the only program in the United States that has not just an elective component, but actually integrated into the core of Northwest curriculum for nursing. Is that requirement that you spend a month away.
It's really unique to be able to say that you have, you know, a month long, like full immersion in another country so that you get to open up your eyes to see not only what's going on here in the hospitals here and the patient care here, but like in other countries, in other parts of the world and what other people are living like. I ended up going to Taiwan and it was actually really fun because we, for the first I think like two weeks, we got to go to different floors and see how nursing looks in this country on the different floors. I look back at my life and see that it wasn't an accident, that I ended up Northwest and just how God put little things in my life when I was a teenager. And then seeing it all culminate together like India is the ultimate, like, that's where I'm supposed to be and it's you know, it's cool to look back at my life and see how those things are playing together to come to this point in my life.
At Northwest University, you're going to get an amazing education, I mean, hands down, you're going to walk out of here with all the skills and all the confidence you need to go out and be an excellent nurse. But beyond that, the personal growth that I've experienced as a person, you know, individually and spiritually, I think those are the things, the character building, you know all the, everything that gets poured into you as as a person, not just as a student. Those are the things that I think really are going to carry me to success in the future.
It's pretty much been the best experience in my life, I guess. And that just means like there have been so many ups and downs, but I wouldn't trade it for for anything. It's just been a really good time. It's been a good two years, and I'm like almost sad to be leaving, it's just been really cool. Coolest thing I've ever done.
