Campuswide Honors alumna Gianna Chandler (’17) had heard from her family that nursing was a “secure and meaningful” career, but her UCI experience turned that interest into a passion.
Gianna had always had an interest in wound care since she was young, and through her time at Sue & Bill Gross School of Nursing, Gianna was exposed to the diverse opportunities within the field and quickly realized how nursing allowed her to treat wounds as a basic function of the job! For Gianna, “nursing is the ultimate helping career, combining science and caring like no other job in the world.” Apart from her time at the nursing school, Gianna also credits the Campuswide Honors Collegium with helping her build other skill sets, from Honors classes such as Social Science Core and Humanities Core teaching her about “being a critical thinker in the modern world” to Coffee Hour at the Locus, a tradition that allowed her “to interact with professors in a fun, relaxed atmosphere [that] made it much easier to speak with them without feeling nervous.”
After graduating from UC Irvine, Gianna went to fulfill her passion by becoming a Certified Wound Care Nurse in 2019 through San Jose State University, allowing her to work in her current role as a RN Wound Specialist at Anaheim Global Medical Center. As a consultant for patients with complex wounds with a variety of etiologies, she cares for everything from diabetic ulcers, to cellulitis skin breakdown, to gunshot wounds. She also enjoys being a helper when needed for other areas of the hospital, serving as a staff educator about wound care, and assisting Employee Health and administration! When asked to provide tips for students currently at UC Irvine, Gianna highlighted that “Studying well takes more than one resource”!
She recommends always looking for other sources of information related to the material you have to learn as this can be helpful when you don’t understand something. For Gianna, “reading about the same information in a different format can help lock it into that big brain of yours!”
Contributed by Sauntharya Manikandan