When it came to earning her BSN, Stacy Volkers had no question where she was going. The Lansing native had already earned her Associate’s Degree in Nursing from Lansing Community College, but she found herself much further away from mid-Michigan when it came time to make a decision on where to further her education.
Despite the fact she lived about 20 minutes southwest of Kansas City — or more than 700 miles away from East Lansing — Volkers still chose the online RN to BSN program at the Michigan State University College of Nursing, graduating in 2015.
“It was important for me to know that I could get a four-year degree and Michigan State was the only place that I wanted to really do that at,” Volkers said. “Just from living there, being a part of that life that is in East Lansing — it’s just kind of a whole culture.”
Volkers, now an RN and educator in the Mother-Baby Unit at the Overland Park Regional Medical Center, found herself in Kansas after meeting her future husband when he was visiting family in Michigan. The two hit it off and, before she knew it, she was making the trek west. She started her program and soon got pregnant with the first of their four boys.
“So, I got into it and started it before we had a family and then went through the whole process of actually being pregnant and having a baby and still being able to stay in school, which I thought was amazing because I'm, you know, (700) miles away from East Lansing over here,” she said. “And I really didn’t know how that would go. The program was very focused on making sure you succeeded. I could do all of the things that I wanted to do and still end up getting my degree from Michigan State.”
Having a team in East Lansing help arrange her clinical rotations, despite being in another state, was immensely helpful, Volkers said. It was something some of her friends in other programs did not have.
“Michigan State really went above and beyond, in my opinion, just for that,” said Volkers.
Volkers is also going above and beyond, teaching classes for new and expectant mothers at the hospital, in addition to her floor nurse duties. She said some students ask her questions about the content they have seen on social media and if it is accurate.
“Social media has kind of been a hard one to fight because there's just constant noise coming at you from all angles about what you should do and what you should do with your baby. You really don't need to get most of the things that they tell you that you need to get. So just kind of navigating those waters with them and bringing them back to, like, ‘This is safe, and these are your decisions that you get to make.’”
When Volkers isn’t busy helping new moms, you can see her around town at sporting events, dining in downtown Kansas City’s Power and Light District or taking in some of the City of Fountains’ history.
“Kind of coming in completely blind, just knowing, you know, the story of the ‘Wizard of Oz’ — I think that's how a lot of people see Kansas,” she said. “And, so, then when you actually are here and you see this part of it, it's just so fascinating that there's so much more than just farmland.”
And if you see her, she’s often sporting some MSU gear, from her green-and-white shoes to her “Spartan Strong” water bottle and even her Spartan helmet earrings. Volkers is a proud Spartan, through and through, including having exchanged vows at Spartan Stadium. She credits part of her love for MSU to her time in the RN to BSN program.
“There's a lot of people who come out of other programs that are very jaded either by their professors or by the profession,” Volkers said. “Michigan State did not have any of that. They were all just wonderful to work with.”
This story originally appeared on the College of Nursing website.
