Table of Contents

Page 1.An overview of nursing and Early Arts Ed Page 2.....Profile: Jon Michael Vickers Page 3.Profile: Dustin Rhoades Page 4.Profile: John Bowman Page 5.Reflection

Overview: Nursing and Early Arts Education

I began my freshman year with a real passion to go into the nursing field. Nursing is an excellent way to help people daily and become a necessary part of the medical field. The nursing program at UALR is either a two or four year program. With the two year program you can get a job as a full time Registered Nurse. In the four year program, you finish with a Bachelors degree in nursing and higher salary expectancy. The program at UALR allows graduation after two years, and then you can begin working as a nurse, while still continuing with schooling to achieve a bachelors degree. Conducting the first interview with Jon Vickers taught me more about nursing. I learned also about different things you have to do as a staring nurse, which include things like taking blood and cleaning patients. Getting a degree in early childhood education means you can teach in elementary schools. My plan is to teach art, which requires an art minor and Early Childhood Ed major. Art teachers in Arkansas are given a curriculum of what to get across to their students, and then are given the freedom of how to carry that message across. So if the teacher is told to help students learn the colors on the color wheel, the teacher can come up with fun ways to teach it. This paper is a compilation of three interviews I conducted with people affiliated with these majors and my reflection of what I think about them and the decision they helped me make regarding my major. They were a lot of help and I hope that whoever reads this (even though its oddly specific) gains some kind of help from it.

PROFILE: Jon Michael Vickers

As Mr. Jon Vickers led me into his office, I noticed some interesting things about him. First was that he seemed very rushed. He asked me a few times how long I thought the interview would take. Another thing that caught my attention was the amount of papers he had in piles scattered throughout the room. There were hundreds. My immediate impression of him was that he is a very busy man. His office was chaotic, no doubt. It was also somehow organized. A secretary came into the office inquiring about a certain students file, and after a bit of rummaging around he was able to produce it. I bet you thought I couldnt find it, huh? he said with a smile. The woman laughed and walked down the hall. Mr. Vickers never studied nursing. Not at all, I went to UALR for public relations and journalism, then I worked for the University of Phoenix for four years before coming here. He is in charge of admissions and advising of nursing students at UALR, and knows more about the actual process of becoming a nurse than the job itself.

Students who are entering a new field typically want to know what the best and worst parts of the jobs are. Mr. Vickers explained to me that the best part of nursing is that it is very flexible, If you want to work with kids, you can work in pediatrics. If you want a fastpaced environment you can work in the E.R or I.C.U. Or if you want to work 8-5 in a doctors office you can do that. So, being a nurse, there are a lot/a variety of different areas in which you can work. The worst part, he said, was the gross stuff. Nursing can get pretty messy so you should make sure you are prepared to handle it all before going into the field. There is a very set list of courses to take before entering the nursing program. We accept 200 students a year, and we usually get about three to four hundred applicants. So we determine who gets in based on those classes. The course list includes Human Anatomy and Physiology one and two, Composition one and two, College Algebra, Psychology of sociology, Chemistry, Microbiology, and U.S. History or American government. You dont have to have all of them before starting the nursing program but you must have most of them. In order to enter the nursing program there is an entrance exam that you have to pass. I asked Mr. Vickers how students usually go about studying for it. There is a study guide available in the library for students who want to start now; you can also purchase one online. He said if you take the prerequisites then you will be mostly prepared for the exam.

You are literally making sick people well

To make it as a nurse, you have to be caring, and have to have that thing inside you where you want to help people out. You are literally making sick people well, so you have to have that empathy inside you that I clearly dont have. He also described that you have to be organized and hard working. There are no Ds in nursing school. It goes ABCF and the lowest C you can get is a 78%. Mr. Jon Vickers is a very straightforward man. He knows all about the process of acceptance into the nursing school at UALR and is readily available to any student in need of some guidance.

Profile: Dustin Rhoades

Dustin Rhoades is a fun loving junior at the University of Arkansas as Little Rock. He is majoring in Early Childhood Education and is a very involved student on campus. He is also a residents assistant in West Hall on the fifth floor. Dustin has a very full plate as a college student but still agreed to take time from his busy life to answer my questions about the program here at UALR. We werent able to meet in person, se we emailed back and forth.

Q.

What would you say have been the most challenging classes for you so far? A. Definitely Child Growth and Development. It is a pretty tough class.

Q.

Who were your favorite professors? And why? A. Mrs. Buchanan for Integrated Science is awesome. She really helps you out when you need it. If you get behind or dont understand something, she will set time aside to work with you and make sure you get it down. Plus she brings candy to the class.

Q.

What made you choose this as your major in the first place? A. I love children and I am passionate about education and I want to make a difference in the lives of some children.

Q.

Have you had any real life experience with this area yet? A. I used to work at an after school program that kids from all different schools in Little Rock went too. That helped me make my decision that I really wanted to do this major. I loved it.

Q.

What did you wish you knew as a freshman? A. Go to class. Its never ok to miss even if the class is pretty easy.

Q.

Do you have any advice for me or anyone else considering this field?

A.

There is a lot of work for all these classes. Make sure you do it and do it on time. Dont put it all of till the end or it will get really tough on you.

From Dustin I was able to understand more fully how important it is not to fall behind in any of your classes. Make sure that whatever major you may choose that you always go to your classes or else the work will start to pile up and you wont be as successful as you want and need to be.

Profile: John Bowman

Mr. John Bowman is an art teacher in the White Hall School District where I grew up. He graduated from the University of Central Arkansas with a degree in art education. He has a lot of talent with kids and as an artist. In fact often times local businesses around town hire him to paint their windows for different occasions. When I went to my hometown to meet with him, many buildings were sporting some of his original Halloween paintings in their windows. The school was especially decorated. You see how busy Ive been? he said to me laughing as we walked into his classroom. Around the room were various arts and crafts supplies; scissors, assorted construction paper, bottles of acrylic paints. It looked like the mother of all art rooms. Mr. Bowman has been teaching art in schools for about ten years. He says they have been some of the best years. He has worked at several different schools with children of all ages, but he says his favorite was working as an elementary art teacher. Being able to teach young kids how to do something for the very first time, and seeing a skill show through at such an early age, is miraculous. A typical day for Mr. Bowman starts with him waking his family up, including his little four year old daughter, Brennan. She hates waking up. She always takes the longest to get ready. He takes her to daycare and his son rides with him to school each morning. I enjoy having my son involved in my job every day. I like for him to see what I do and to be able to teach him daily. Bowman says, The food isnt anything to brag about, but the rest is great. I work with awesome people and my boss lets me paint on the walls. Who wouldnt love it?

I love to create, and nothing makes me happier than getting paid to do so!

Mr. John Bowman is a man who clearly loves his job as much as he loves art. There really isnt a separation between work and play for me, mostly because my work is my play. I love to create, and nothing makes me happier than getting paid to do so! Maybe grading papers isnt the best, but it is a small price to pay for my dream job. The starting salary for an elementary school teacher is around $32,470 a year with a ten year increase. There are also bonuses for holidays throughout the year and you get the whole summer off! Every day I get to see something that has never been seen before, Mr. Bowman says as he talks about his students. Some of these kids really have talent, and it is so cool to see it develop over time. Not everyone gets that experience. Being one of his former students, I was often able to see the joy that he had whenever he began teaching something new. Mr. Bowman is one of my biggest inspirations in that he actually reached his goal in life and is doing exactly what he has always wanted to do. Outside of being a cowboy, that is. I learned a lot about art from Mr. Bowman. However, the most important thing I learned from him is that you should strive to do whatever it is that will make you happiest in life.

Reflection
Receiving this assignment I thought it would be simple, because I thought I already knew what I wanted to do with my life. I thought that I wanted to be a nurse and assist in all kinds of medical procedures, but looking further into the career I quickly discovered that it was simply not for me. I guess I should have already known this though, because the sight of blood makes me queasy. People with forks stuck in their heads make me nauseous. Honestly, most things about being a nurse really repulsed me. While I was thinking about these things I began to wonder what it was that made me want to go into the field. I wanted to help people, thats it. And nothing seems like a better way to help than literally making people well again.

I soon realized that there are tons of different ways to help people to learn and grow without having to take their blood or insert tubes into their bodies. Talking with my art teacher Mr. Bowman, I discovered how enriching it is to be a teacher. He could not stop talking about how much he really loved his job because he got to see people learn, and grow, for the first time. Our conversation, also with my background of wanting to teach others and loving art, led me to a new career choice; early arts education. I have always been handy with a paintbrush, or really any painting utensil, Ive even used knives. Im no Picasso but I know the basic stepping stones that elementary kids should learn and I feel as though I could make it really fun for them. I want to have the kind of joy in my career that makes you say, My work isnt much different from my play. In the end I decided to go with what I feel will make me the happiest I can be in my years to come. The best advice I can give anyone who is preparing to make a career choice is to explore your options and make sure you know everything you can about the subject you choose. Also, do whatever will make you happy.