From a young age, Michelle sought refuge at school.  She felt connected to her peers and empowered to strive toward her goals.  She finished high school, but could not sustain tuition and living expenses and community college and left school. Years later, after working as a mental health counselor, a Nurse Practitioner colleague encouraged her to explore a career in nursing.  As a result, Michelle is now in the nursing program at CSUSB-PD. Her goal post-graduation is to work locally as an RN in a critical care unit. 

Although Michelle is thrilled be in a nursing program and has been excelling academically (earning straight A’s), she has found that many of the courses that she wants to take are only offered at the main CSUSB campus and not offered at the Palm Desert extension campus. Specifically, Michelle was really interested in taking a sign language course which would be incredibly beneficial to her future career, but the course was only offered at the main campus. Due to financial and time constraints, Michelle cannot afford to travel to the main campus and must complete all of her courses at the local campus.