Read about Lynette Stevenson, a graduate of College of The Albemarle’s (COA) Associate Degree Nursing program, and her journey from college to career.

Lynette Stevenson was a non-traditional student at COA when she began taking a few courses in 2005.

She had been out of high school for more than two decades by then and had never thought of pursuing a college degree. After graduating from Northeastern High School in 1983, she got married and worked for her husband’s family business, selling carpet in Elizabeth City. Stevenson worked there for 12 years until her husband’s untimely death. Then, faced with the challenge of being a single mother to their young daughter, Stevenson realized she needed to go back to school and get a college degree.

“I went to COA in 2005 and started with the goal of just taking a few classes,” Stevenson said.

She soon decided she wanted to become a pharmacist, so she transferred to Elizabeth City State University and earned her bachelor’s degree in biology there. She was applying to pharmacy schools when she realized that wasn’t what she wanted to spend the rest of her life doing.

“I wanted something more hands-on. I wanted to be with patients,” she said. “When I graduated from high school, I always wanted to be a nurse. And I knew COA had a great nursing program.”

So, Stevenson headed back to COA to earn her ADN program and in 2011, she graduated from the program. Quickly, she put her new degree to use, landing a job at Albemarle Hospital as an operating room nurse, where she has worked since 2011.

“I love it,” she said. “I love my job. I went directly from new graduate, to the operating room. Ordinarily, you usually have to have a year’s experience. They don’t typically take new graduates.”

Stevenson credits COA’s successful nursing program with helping her land a job so quickly after graduation.

Stevenson took advantage of her alma mater’s Registered Nurse (RN) to Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Strategic Transition in Education Progression (STEP) Center program, to help her find a graduate nursing program that would allow her to work at the hospital full time, and pursue her BSN.

Using the STEP Center, Stephenson said she researched the prices of BSN programs, found out what prerequisites she needed to take and which ones offered online programs that would be compatible with her work schedule.

“It served as a guide to where I was going to get my bachelor’s from,” Stevenson said. “That was a big help in determining where I was going to go.”

In December 2015, Stevenson earned her BSN from Western Carolina University. It’s still remarkable to her that in 2005, when she began taking classes at COA, she was only a high school graduate. Since then, she has gone on to earn an associate degree and two bachelor’s degrees.

“COA was my point of entry into nursing,” Stevenson said. “I had a really great experience there.”