As a graduate nurse who successfully completed 3 and half years of education in nursing, I feel a huge sense of pride and achievement right now and I would like all of my fellow graduates to cast your minds back to day one of St. Martha’s adventure.
As quoted by John F Kennedy, “we must find time to stop and thank all the people who made a difference in our life”.
At this juncture of achieving a major milestone in our life, we raise our hearts with gratitude to God almighty for all his blessings for the past 3 ½ yrs.
“College is something you complete, life is something you experience. Success is defined in myriad ways and you will find that through so many people as you progress in your life journey. We are grateful to the management of St. Martha’s college of nursing for giving us the opportunity to find this success through the experiences we gained from here.
As rightly said by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, “difficulties in your life do not come to destroy you, but to help you realize your hidden potentials and power, let difficulties know that you too are difficult”.
Looking back helps us to gather lot of memories. Our days were not very easy and we tried each day to cope up with its tough schedules. But in all these, the most important thing we learned was striving for excellence with hard work and passion for nursing realizing the value of being a nurse.
Each and every one of us graduating today has had to struggle, sacrifice and compromise in order to succeed and each of us takes something individual from our time at SMCON. I have had many opportunities for personal and professional growth and I have been encouraged out of my comfort zone many times. We all had wonderful support network of people around us , without whom our degree wouldn’t be possible.
“Let us be grateful to the people who made us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom – says Marcel Proust”.
A person of infinite value, has the ability to make a profound difference in the lives of others, who gives most profoundly positive impact in those around her by the examples she set. We are grateful to God for giving us a person like that, our principal Sr.Shanty Chacko. Sister knows the strength and needs of the students and has helped us and given us meaningful opportunity for our professional development and instilled in us a passion for nursing as a profession.
"Education is an excellent tool, if used properly, and if we are focused on a goal. Here to achieve our goal we had our class coordinators and teachers during these 3 ½ yrs. All of them toiled unselfishly, sharing their time, energy, talent and knowledge with us. With an open heart they were ever loving and supportive to all of us and helped us to bring out the best in us.
We can never forget the help we enjoyed from the non-teaching staff who were always ready to extend their support and helping hand which made our journey an easy one.
Here we are with joy in our hearts and smiles on our face ready to challenge the future. Apart from our academic activities in the class room, we were enriched with clinical exposure to the wards, which were the best classroom to learn our nursing skills. We gratefully remember the hospital management, for giving us the opportunity for the practical experience, the contribution by the ward in charges, staff nurses and doctors who were of great support to learn our practical skills. We thank all the patients who bore with us, when we practiced our nursing skills on them.
A day came where we have to be away from our family and friends to join this family of St.Martha’s college of nursing and hospital with fears and tears. And our stay in the hostel was made homely by our loving wardens Sr.Hilda and Sr.Kripa by their motherly care in all through our stay in the hostel.
I am excited to remember the first time we met in august 23rd 2012 in St.Martha’s hostel with our own anxieties and confusions. A bunch of 43 girls from different states of India and from Nepal, strangers growing slowly in to a caring and sharing friends. We supported, nurtured, helped and we grew together in those 3 ½ yrs.
Many of us realize that learning is social: we learn more when we learn together, when we exchange ideas and stimulate each other’s thinking– and this is the way many people find learning together most rewarding.
Here we remember the S N A competitions and activities which placed new challenges to learn new things, to develop our talents and potentials. The S N A activities gave us an opportunity to explore ourselves and boosted our morale in so many ways.
At this time we fondly remember our parents, guardians and all our well-wishers who supported us in all we did. Your love, guidance, encouragement and nurturing care made this day possible.
We feel proud and honored for having studied in this prestigious college, which equipped us and trained us as a professional nurses.
n closing, I would like to quote a few lines about nursing by DONNA WILK CARDILO
“Nursing is not for everyone. It takes a very strong intelligent and compassionate person to take on the ills of the world with passion and purpose and work to maintain the health and wellbeing of the patient. No wonder we’re exhausted at the end of the day”.
Away in to this world we are send, to complete our own circle and find out what they are meant, to experience something spectacular and true, the simplest things, like the sky being blue, not knowing the answer, but asking why, falling over our own feet, we continue to try.
As we all continue in our life, let us take with confidence knowing that we have achieved great heights and we are equipped with necessary tools to tackle our future in our profession. Dear friends as we graduate and go, some of us may enter the field and some of us may continue on our education, but we all share the common thing, we are all nurses and we made it and we promise to be true to our ALMA MATER to serve the humanity and to always let our light shine.
Congratulations and God bless you all
