Graduation season begins today at San Diego State University with the first of many ceremonies taking place at COX Arena. Students with the university's health and human services department are the first to don caps and gowns. Officials say this year there's a record-number of nursing grads. KPBS reporter Ana Tintocalis has more.
The nursing grads filed into SDSU’s COX Arena waving to loved ones and smiling for the cameras. This is the largest group of nursing grads in the university's history. Close to 190 students.
The graduates hope to fill the persistent nursing void found in so many hospitals.
Twenty-three-year-old Arlene Hady already has a job lined-up. She says it’s been a long, hard journey since she first stepped into a nursing class three years ago.
Hady : We were all sitting there awestruck. You know wide-eyed, not knowing what to expect. That's when we really found out how really rigorous it was. But having the support of all of my classmates has made all the difference in the world.
Hady will be a nurse at the VA Medical Center in La Jolla. She is one of more than 10,000 SDSU students graduating this weekend.
Ana Tintocalis, KPBS News.
