Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow / Livestream
Gabrielle Viovicente – among the first Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing students to graduate from Grand Canyon University’s East Valley site in Chandler, Arizona – looked out from the stage into a sea of graduates stretched out before her in Global Credit Union Arena, hoping to see the friends from nursing school she admires so much.
The day before, at morning rehearsals, it was just her in an almost empty arena alongside Commencement Manager Jes Green, who guided her to the mic, instructing her where to stand, what will happen, where to go.
“I hope I don’t cry,” said Viovicente, one of two student speakers chosen to address the crowds gathered at Friday’s two commencement ceremonies.
But at rehearsals, she did cry.
“It’s so different, saying it out loud here without anyone. But being able to look at them … I see the struggle and I see, oh my gosh,” she said, her eyes tearing up, “I get so emotional talking about them.”
During her commencement speech, she said she marveled over two fellow students who pushed through nursing school – a dad of two girls and a single mom of two children with a whole life of responsibilities outside of online classes and in-person labs, simulations and clinicals.
“To go through nursing school alone is really difficult. I don’t have kids. I’m not married. I didn’t have to pay the bills. But they fought hard. To be able (for them) to look at their kids here tomorrow. … It’s not just that you got a BSN; it’s about the journey itself and failing an exam and still getting up and still going to work and still being there for your kids,” said Viovicente, who trailed off before she thought of her own fight.
“I get so emotional because I (also) fought so hard, day in and day out,” she said of the constant worry of keeping her grades high enough so she wouldn’t lose her scholarship.
Her struggle began soon after leaving her home in Butuan City, Philippines, with her mom, stepdad and siblings to make a better life in the United States.
“It was such a cultural shock for me,” said Viovicente, whose family landed in Washington, D.C., when she was 10 years old before moving to Chandler. “I didn’t know how to speak English. I didn’t know what was happening. It was just a completely different life.”
Not only could she not talk to anyone in her new school, “I failed every assessment,” she said of scoring below average in reading, language and math comprehension.
So she taught herself English and, after three years, was fluent in the language.
“That time was really foundational to who I am now,” she said. “It taught me to be resilient, to be strong, to stand my ground.”
She also learned to take every opportunity given to her and not waste those gifts. When she entered Chandler Preparatory Academy, she took every honors class she could, even tackling calculus in the 10th grade. She graduated with a 4.67 grade point average.
And after starting her college career at GCU, she set her sights on medical school.
“But my junior year, I was like, do I really want to go through this? So I shadowed a nurse,” she said. Her own mom has worked as a nurse for three decades, the first in her family to earn her nursing license, but when she arrived in the States to work, she had to pass the notoriously challenging National Council Licensure Examination.
“After three hours, I just fell in love with nursing,” Viovicente said. “It was just sudden. I just felt it, like a spirit over me, like THIS is what you’re meant to do.”
She said she felt that those roadblocks in her life made her strong so she could care for others.
“You’re given an opportunity to be able to understand medicine but also understand humanity and people, and I think that’s really where my calling has been.”
So Viovicente finished her bachelor's degree in psychology while waiting to get accepted into the ABSN program, a hybrid accelerated program that melds online and hands-on learning. Students with previous college credits can complete their degree in as little as 16 months. GCU touts 10 such ABSN sites across Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Missouri and Florida, aiming to grow to 40 in the next four to five years to help alleviate the dire national nursing shortage.
“It was such a God gift, because I didn’t know that GCU had a Chandler campus opening. I applied a week after I graduated.”
She got a full-tuition scholarship that helped her immensely.
Viovicente interviewed before a panel of six just a few days before she stepped up on the GCU commencement stage, a student who just 13 years ago didn’t speak any English and who failed every academic assessment to one of the university’s winter commencement speakers.
“It took over 50 exams, eight performance-based assessments, 336 clinical hours and 224 hours of simulation to get here today,” Viovicente said in her speech, followed by an arena full of nursing students who cheered because they understood the grit it took to earn that bachelor’s degree. Viovicente noted in a study of 11,000 West Point cadets by academic Angela Duckworth that it was grit and physical ability, more than cognitive ability, that determined who will graduate from West Point in four years.
In a few weeks, Viovicente will be taking the NCLEX, which the university’s ABSN students have passed with strong results. The first-time pass rate for test-takers in various GCU ABSN locations are 94.75% in Phoenix and 100% at the Sandy, Utah, site in 2023 and a 100% pass rate at the Henderson, Nevada, location in the first quarter of 2024.
Viovicente's dream is to work in critical care.
Cyndi North, the Chandler ABSN site’s manager, said of Viovicente, “She has strong faith, is very community-centered and patient-focused. She will be an asset to the nursing profession.”
Viovicente said she knew, through nursing, that she could really serve people.
“I love that I can hold a patient’s hand,” she said, and could be there to help them through their own struggles and even be there for them in their last moments.
She shared her difficulties and those of her fellow nursing students during her commencement address to not only nursing students but those from the colleges of Arts and Media, Humanities and Social Sciences and Education. Not surprisingly, she focused her speech on the importance of grit and having purpose and perspective in one’s life.
“I didn’t want just to be book smart, but people smart,” she said, then thought about her fellow nurses who fought hard alongside her. “Having that compassion and empathy, what a gift.”
Manger of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or at 602-637-6901.
***
Related content:
GCU News: Dreamer: From sleeping on shop floor to walking commencement stage
GCU News: Harvesting knowledge pays off for North Dakota native
GCU News: Student taking a second shot, this time as a nurse
