Miranda Thresher
Major : Nursing
High School : West Chester East High School
Hometown : West Chester, PA
After receiving her BS in biochemistry, Miranda Thresher had started life on her own earning a good wage, most recently as a research technician at Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia. She liked her work, yet, having had four different positions in four years, she felt there was “something missing.” After some soul searching, she discovered people interaction was the missing component in her job. Now, six years after she graduated from college, she’s back in the classroom as a nursing student at Neumann College getting her BSN, and hoping to add a human touch factor to her career.
Miranda says her career goals always did revolve around “helping people.” She says, “I thought I could do that by working behind the scenes in a research lab. I discovered, however, that I really liked more fact-to-face contact with people. I think a nursing career will give me what I want.” Encouraged by her mom to follow her passion while young and not too entrenched in a research career, Miranda turned to the web to investigate local colleges with a nursing program.
She had several requirements she wanted met. First, she says, “I wanted to stay in the Philadelphia area in a school close to home. My mom offered for me to live at home, since this time around, I would be paying for school.” Therefore, reasonable costs became an important criterion. Miranda also wanted a school with a solid nursing program that she could complete in a timely fashion. The final decisive factor was size. “I prefer more interaction with my professors which I feel small schools can provide,” she says. Neumann was a perfect fit.
Miranda is enjoying her second college experience. She feels “more focused” now than the last time she attended college. “As a student just out of high school, college was more about the social life for me than the degree. Now, I concentrate on my work. I think adult students go to school like it’s their job.” She finds the nursing program “challenging,” but not overwhelming because she has “a good support system of instructors and students.” She says, “Neumann instructors are so willing to sit down with you and help you work through things. I feel like I’m not just in a school, but in a community of people who are sharing their environment and experiences,” she said. “Someone is always there to help you.”
Currently working as a phlebotomist at Chester County Hospital to help pay for her college costs, Miranda is targeting critical care nursing as her second career. “I feel I’ll have close contact with the patient and the family. I feel what I will be doing is really important to the patient’s recovery.” According to Miranda, you can’t find this kind of personal interaction in the research lab. She believes her nursing career will give her the job satisfaction she’s been craving.
