Student Spotlight

Meet our next student spotlight, Laura Wilcox! She is from Farmington, Utah, enjoys playing soccer, boating, Lake Powell, and she is slowly learning to enjoy colder weather. Laura has been an aunt since she was 10, a wife since she was 21, and a novice mountain biker since she was 23. A fun fact she likes to share is that she can be seen as an extra in an episode of Modern Family. The show was filming in Las Vegas while she was on vacation there, and she got to walk in the background a handful of times. Laura is in her sixth and last semester in the BYU Nursing program. After graduating, she hopes to work in the ICU or in Labor and Delivery, but she is willing to be open to whatever is available to her.

"Something that has motivated me my whole life, in everything I do, is the mantra �be a lover of learning,'" says Jaren Smith, a second-semester nursing student, and student spotlight for the week. "College has given me the skills and a platform to chase knowledge, and BYU Nursing has given me a pathway to continue to learn throughout my life."

Our nursing school is full of students who are brilliant and kind. Melanie Watabe is one of them. The story that got her to where she is in her third semester at the College of Nursing at Brigham Young University is one that demonstrates her courage and commitment to the people she will serve. Melanie is, in fact, in her fifth year of undergrad. She's always loved the health field, and never wanted to be a nurse, but three years into the exercise and wellness major she felt very strongly that she was not where she was supposed to be. In a response to that prompting, she began exploring what it would take to start nursing school. After a lot of talks with the academic counselor to work around the excessive number of credits Melanie had already put toward graduation, Melanie headed out on her mission to Japan. Upon her return a year and a half later, she applied to the program and was accepted.