Meet The Partners | Katie Evans
Meet Katie Evans! The third year, DNP student & Mansfield, Ohio local, is our third Corporate Partners Program student-feature. Check out our Q&A with Katie below!
Tell us a little about yourself - who you are, name, major, and why you chose it?
My name is Katie Evans, I live in Mansfield Ohio. I work in Ashland at Brethren Care Village and I’m currently majoring in the Doctorate of Nursing practice program specializing in the family nurse practitioner route.
I believe the calling to serve the elderly started when I was younger I would go into nursing homes with my mom growing up. And then I got into nursing and I started at Brethern Care and I loved it. I felt like I was serving my purpose. I went away from the elderly population and worked in a hospital setting and I just wasn’t as happy.. So I went back to the nursing home and I’ve stuck with it. My goal is to create a long-lasting relationship with the patients that I serve and I can best do that in the nursing home setting.
After graduation, I plan to continue working with the elderly whether it be in the in-patient setting or in a nursing home setting, wherever God calls me to work.
What’s it like taking Doctoral classes, with a full-time work and family schedule?
The program is completely online with the exception of the clinical sites that you do years three and four. It’s a 4-year online program. I was drawn to the program because I wanted more opportunities in healthcare and this was the best route for me that fit my personal life and career life. With it being completely online I can juggle still working full-time, doing the school, and then raising the two children at home and then being a wife, all of that good stuff. It’s been great, I’m learning a lot. The program focuses on your leadership skills and how to enhance healthcare and ultimately provide the best quality care for the patients that you serve.
When will you have your program completed and what’s in store for you in this part of the program?
This August will start year three, and I will graduate in August 2022. This summer starts the first residency hours. The first two years are completely online, there are no additional residency or preceptor hours - that starts in the summer semester. So I will do 50 hours and then each semester it builds up to where by the end of the program you will have 1,000 hours completed. They break it up, over each semester, so it’s not overwhelming, so you don’t really realize it.
At least for me, when I hear a 1,000 hours I’m very overwhelmed but if I do it by semester I think, ok I only have 50 hours to do this semester, it’s able to manage better in my brain
As an employee of Brethern Care Village, you’re able to use our Corporate Partners Discount. Can you talk more about that?
So I first heard about the corporate partnership program through another student of Ashland who also works at Brethern Care and so I applied and was granted the discount. It’s not a big discount when you’re on the graduate level but it does help. I’m grateful for any type of help at this level. So I take advantage of it, and that’s what its there for. I just feel like more awareness needs to be put out there.
Why did you choose AU for the DNP program?
I also got accepted into a Master’s program. The same kind of thing, it was just a master’s level where I would come out with my family nurse practitioner. It was a school up in Cleveland, so it wasn’t completely online and the more I read about obtaining your nurse practitioner degree the more I’m reading that schools are wanting students to have their doctorate.
The cost wasn’t much difference between the masters level and then the doctorate level so I chose Ashland primarily for that, in the long run, I don’t want to have to go back to school to obtain my doctorate. I would rather just do it now. I remember Lisa Young told me when I first applied, down the road, organizations and employers will look at a master’s level and it will be equivalent to like a bachelor’s level degree. So if you don’t do it now, you’re going to regret not doing it and having to get a Master’s level and then two years later have to go back and jump through the hoops to get your doctorate.
Would you recommend AU to other nursing students?
Yes! The faculty are all very hands-on. They’re easy to reach out to if you have questions, even through this whole pandemic. They’ve just been there. They know you by name, they know who you are. They know where you work, what your strengths are, what your weaknesses are. I just feel like I’m not a number like I would be at another University.
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Katie is one of over two hundred students that take advantage of tuition discounts through the Corporate Partners Program at Ashland University. The Corporate Partners program is an employee benefit opportunity for external companies. It was created to provide access to training and educational opportunities that help shape both personal and professional development. To learn more information about this program or to see if you qualify, you can call 419.207.6759 or email corp-partnerships@ashland.edu