Car Raid

Car Raid

Cecily Real’s Ford Taurus might appear small, but inside contains a total of twenty three textbooks for her nursing school in college.

“We were lugging all my college stuff home, and I didn't want to put them in a box, because I’d break the box…” Real laughed. “It’d get so heavy that we wouldn't be able to carry it, so my family and I had a brilliant idea to just shove them in my car and then get them out later. It took like four trips.”

Cecily Real just finished her third year of college at Angelo State in San Angelo, Texas. Although majoring in nursing excites her, the amount of money textbooks cost lays a huge burden on this college student.

“Textbooks costs upwards of four hundred dollars per semester,” Real said. “Good thing I have a scholarship that I use to pay for that. It literally costs a whole month’s rent, so I don’t like that. Not to mention it breaks my back when I carry all of them to class.”

However, the textbooks aren’t necessarily used solely for studying purposes.

“I use the books in other ways, such as holding down glue,” Real said. “I know my friends made a TV stand out of their books. They’re a great thing to clutter your desk with, to break your back with, and they make you go crazy. They're the reason the library is my best friend and my second home.”

Despite the strain textbooks place on college students, being able to become a nursing major has helped to ease Real by motivating her to work for what she wants.

“There's this really cool hospital in Austin, the Lakeway Regional Medical Center, that’s just been built, and it'd be wonderful to work there,” Real said. “I have no idea what kind of nurse I’d want to be yet, but this semester in clinicals I'll be doing my emergency room ER care, my ICU, which is the most critical patients, I’ll be doing labor and delivery, and also pediatric care. Hopefully I’ll know what I want to do after that.”

Being one of the few students to get into nursing school, Real tries to determine which qualities helped her make it into this program along with her knowledge of the subject.

“I have a lot of sympathy; that’s why I cry when patients die. But empathy is what nurses have, that should have, and I have that. You share feelings that they have, which makes you care for them better. When I see someone hurt, I want to be the reason they stay alive.”