News
A Push in the Right Direction
November 06, 2019
A Push in the Right Direction
GVSU Student Spotlight by Emma Schrider
If you have ever followed a passion, you know that the first move is often simply a haphazard lurch in the direction you know you must go. With each step you feel lighter, your integrity grows, and your heart swells in your chest. This is it, you think. This is right.
For Ellery Alexander, making this move meant bravely bailing out of an engineering program to work as a Nurse Tech at Mary Freebed Rehabilitation Hospital. It’s unsurprising given her sparkling and sympathetic personality that working alone in a lab was not for her. Even though moving from a solitary existence to the bedside was no doubt a shock to the system, Ellery took her chance for change. She craved connection. She wanted to serve.
Two years into an already fulfilling career with Mary Freebed, working with neurologically injured and mobility impaired patients, Ellery returned to school to gain momentum and refine her direction. She enrolled in Grand Valley State University’s Adult Leadership Program as part of an Integrative Studies degree. The program is designed for adults returning to school and accommodates an adult lifestyle, leaving room for the families and ongoing careers of its students. The atmosphere of the program is flexible and supportive, Ellery says, and is committed to seeing its participants succeed.
“We have a cohort dynamic that’s typically left for medical degrees. We rely on each other [and are] facing similar things,” Ellery explains. “A lot of my classmates are married, have two kids, or two jobs.” The program even boasts a freeform knowledge hour every Tuesday, so students can “stop by in a crunch”.
The over the top level of support from her program came as a pleasant surprise to Ellery, but another element of the program was less than expected. GVSU’s Adult Leadership Program requires an internship.
Ellery recounts how, after having completed two internships for her engineering degree, the very mention of another was intimidating. She soon learned, however, that GVSU had her covered, allowing flexibility to complete it at her current job, and that the focus was not busy work, but rather a push for students to step outside of their traditional role. Ellery jumped in with both feet, and the experience was life altering.
“It changed what I wanted to do,” she says. With the extra experience and exposure, Ellery was able to rise above the fold and fill the newly created position of Quality Project Coordinator for Mary Freebed. “The internship I was bitter about helped me get a new job,'' she reports with a chuckle.
Ellery was also propelled forward by her coursework in other ways. As a result of a required interview for one of her Adult Leadership Program courses, she has joined the Board of Directors for Alternatives in Motion, a local nonprofit dedicated to enhancing independence through access to mobility equipment, Ellery is currently juggling a full course load, working full time at Mary Freebed, serving as a board member for Alternatives in Motion, and finishing her internship. When asked if she’s always been an overachiever, and how much coffee it takes to make all of this happen, Ellery replies with a laugh and a humble answer.
“I try to keep it to one cup,” she says. She credits GVSU and the ALP program’s structure with helping her achieve so much at once. “[I’ve been] impressed with the level of support from the professors. The structure is conducive to an adult life.”
For more information about the Adult Leadership Program at Grand Valley State University, contact Kate Vanderkolk at [email protected] or learn more at www.gvsu.edu/complete…….