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Meet Alanah Lux. Fredericksburg native, Triangle resident, ICU step-down nurse at UVA Community Health Prince William Medical Center, and second-eldest of four sisters. Loves reading, crock-pot cooking, and her French bulldog, “Dobby,” named after the Harry Potter elf of the same name. First nurse in her family, first-year RN to BSN student in the Northern Virginia cohort, and a Germanna Community College graduate like her mom, grandmother, and aunt before her. Adores decorating her home for every holiday and all the sights, smells, and sounds of autumn and winter. Future ICU nurse and nurse practitioner and a member of the UVA class of 2027.

PATH TO NURSING

“I didn’t always know that I wanted to be a nurse. No one in my family works in healthcare, though my aunt is a dental hygienist, which is what I originally thought about doing. I graduated from high school in 2020, not knowing what I wanted to do. When I got to Germanna Community College, I thought, ‘Am I really going to want to clean teeth my whole life?’ and realized that no, it wasn’t for me. I talked to an advisor, asking what I could change to give myself the most flexibility, and she recommended nursing.

“Even though my grandmother had been sick for many years during my growing up, and I’d cared for her, I’d never genuinely thought about nursing. My mom had originally wanted to be a nurse, but every time she tried to go back to school, she got pregnant again! So, I’m the first nurse in my family.”

CURRENT NURSING ROLE

“I’ve been a nurse for a little more than a year now and work on an intermediate critical care unit where we see a huge variety of patients: a lot of heart attacks, some strokes, a lot of gastro-intestinal issues, detox and withdrawal patients. Because of where we are in Manassas, we also see a lot of homeless patients and vulnerable populations, and I’ve really enjoyed the variety of people we get to work with. I’ve learned a ton. It’s definitely a tremendously challenging career, mentally, spiritually, physically, emotionally, but it’s just as rewarding as it in challenging. I definitely think it was meant to be.”

WHY RETURN FOR A BSN?

“Getting your bachelor’s opens up so many doors, career-wise, even though, honestly, it was hard to wrap my mind around coming back to school again. I had a friend, Cora, who’d graduated from UVA’s BSN program, and she shared her experience with me about what the program was and how kind the instructors were, which was hard to believe at first, but they really are exceptional. I haven’t yet had a not-great encounter with anyone at UVA: they’ve super kind, super understanding.”

“I love the hybrid build. It makes it a lot more sustainable to keep up with. We still meet in person, once a month, which is great. It gives me a sense of community and support, which, if was only online, I wouldn’t feel. The classes are structured really well, too, assignments are consistently due on certain days of the week, and faculty give us certain content to review while letting us pick the disease process. In our in-person classes, Dr. [Gretchen] Wiersma will go over a topic and then open the floor for discussion, so we can apply what we do at work or have seen at work and talk about it.

“Asthma, for instance: no matter where we work — the emergency room, ICU, pediatrics — we all see it. We did an unfolding case study about that, and everyone in class could participate.”

BALANCING SCHOOL, WORK, AND LIFE

“I’m definitely struggling a little, because the program is rigorous, but the instructors and my peers have all been super supportive, which makes it easier to keep going. The program is more time consuming than I’d anticipated, but now that I’m not rotating days and nights at my job anymore, and transitioned to day shift, things will get a lot easier. When I was struggling with my sleep schedule, I turned in a lot of assignments late, but the instructors were always extremely understanding and didn’t deduct points from my assignments.

“No doubt it’d be easier to say, ‘I’ll stop, and try again in six months,’ but I need to do this for me and my future. It makes me appreciate the well-timed breaks!”

ADVICE TO THOSE CONSIDERING THE RN TO BSN

“When I was at Germanna, I failed one of my second semester nursing classes, and it took me a whole year to get back in, which was a big part of my journey. I saw a lot of people fail out of my program, and then never saw them again. For me, though, failing that class — Nursing 170 — actually encouraged me. I’d devoted so much time and energy to doing it that I didn’t want to give up. I took it as a challenge, like, ‘OK, I’m going to take extra classes, get my GPA back up, get back into the course’ — and I did. I took it super seriously, found out what worked well for me, and after that, scored high 90s on my exams. We started a study group together and tested and taught each other.

“That was a big lesson for me: failing didn’t discourage me; it made me value my place in the program a lot more, and kind of opened up a new level of motivation to keep me going.”

THE SCHOOL IN A WORD?

“MOTIVATIONAL. Everyone I’ve had an encounter with has been understanding and kind and that really keeps me motivated to do the very best that I can. It makes me want to give everything I can to others like they do for me. The way they talk to us, support us, makes me feel like people at UVA truly care, and that helps me want to keep going. You can tell it’s not superficial.”