Noelle Carpenter, of Florence, a conscientious nursing student in her sophomore year, was finally getting real-world experience doing “clinicals” at St. Mary Hospital in Langhorne, Pa. in 2020.
That was when an email came through from her school, The College of New Jersey, saying that they would be closing for the week after spring break due to an outbreak of something referred to as a novel coronavirus.
“So we’d be done for two weeks, but then we were supposed to come back,” she recalls.
The ensuing COVID pandemic, which has now claimed the lives of 1 million people in the United States alone, turned the world upside down and disrupted the routines of college students — none more than those studying and working in the health care profession.
Remote learning became the norm and when clinicals returned, there were fewer. “It (COVID) definitely impacted clinical and learning a lot,” Carpenter said, “But I like that we still persevered.
Carpenter is one of 1,832 undergraduates and 344 post-graduates receiving their degrees during two days of commencement ceremonies at TCNJ this week.
“You are survivors of zoomland and the pandemic…. You did not see COVID headlines, you lived them,” TCNJ Dean of School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science Carole Kenner told the students.
“While this is not how we would have wished you to apply your classroom knowledge, you learned that you have the skills to succeed in your chosen career path.”
Carpenter concurred. “It (the pandemic) kind of helped me because it made me advocate for myself even more,” she said, “because when I was going around with the nurses instead of saying, ‘Oh, I’ll just watch,’ I was like ‘Can I give this baby their injection? Can I help you check this mother? Can I do this? Can I do that?’”
TCNJ President Kathryn Foster acknowledged the difficulty the Class of 2022 faced, calling them “my class” because she began her tenure at TCNJ when they were freshmen in 2018.
“We have grown together through a remarkable four-year period in our lives, the life of this college, and the history of the world,” she said. “I am so grateful for your companionship and inspiration.”
Carpenter’s studies and work so far in nursing have revealed to her that the emergency setting is where she can do the most good. “I will be needed no matter what,” she said, “and I want to be there for those people in their worst times and be their light, or be that support for them.”
The fact that she graduated cum laude even under these unprecedented conditions demonstrates that Carpenter isn’t deterred by unforeseen challenges, a quality that will serve her well in the job she has waiting for her working in the emergency department at Penn Medicine Princeton Medical Center.
Carpenter and all of her fellow graduates have overcome some daunting odds to complete their education in nursing, health or exercise science in the midst of a pandemic and make themselves ready to enter the work world.
The mortarboard Carpenter wore to commencement speaks to the courage that is required. It was Star Wars-themed and included a quote from Han Solo in “The Empire Strikes Back” when he dangerously — but successfully — flew his ship right into an asteroid belt to avoid capture. “Never tell me the odds.”
The TCNJ School of Nursing, Health, and Exercise Science started off the two days of 2022 Commencements by department at TCNJ on Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. The last one is for all students receiving their master’s degrees on Friday, May 20, 5:30–7:30 p.m. EST.
All events are live-streamed and can be seen here.
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