Firelands Success Stories

For Doug Will, coming to BGSU Firelands was an open door to a better future.  He says: “I’d always taken jobs in order to support my family, and the kids were older, and I saw an opportunity to pursue something that I might be interested in instead of working with a job that I hated”.

After taking career assessments and talking with John Clark, Career Services Coordinator at BGSU Firelands, he decided to pursue a career in Respiratory Care Technology.  This, he says, “revealed that Respiratory Care would be one of the fields that I might be successful in.  And it also fit with my overall plan.  I didn’t want to be in school 4 or 5 years.

Also, he says: “I already was a bit interested in Respiratory because of personal history and personal contact with it, so I already knew a little bit about it.”

Like many adults, Doug was a little concerned about the idea of returning to school.  He says: “There are other older students, so I knew I wouldn’t be the only older student.  The most intimidating part to me was to come back and see if I could successfully compete with the kids who had just graduated from high school.  I had no idea whether I could compete.” 

However, he says, “It didn’t take long.  After a few weeks of class and a few tests, when I realized that I could successfully compete with the kids, there was no problem.”

For adult students thinking about returning to school, Doug has strong words of encouragement: “I would recommend it to anybody, just for their own personal enrichment, to come back to school, because it keeps you mentally sharp, and for that reason alone, even if it wasn’t for a career change, it’s been awesome for me.  It has changed my life.” 

He also says his family has been very supportive.  “They’re very proud”, he says.

Doug found the classes in the Respiratory program challenging, but rewarding, and he speaks highly of the program: “It’s difficult, it’s demanding, but the instructors are good, they’re really good.” 

He describes the program as very practical, with “a lot of hands-on”.  He says that classes in science and communication were important parts of the overall training he received. 

He also appreciated the chance to apply his classroom skills in the real world as a part of his training.  “You spend a lot of time in a lot of the different hospitals getting clinical experience.  It’s good preparation for the work world.”

After graduating from the program, Doug found a position as a Respiratory Therapist at the Cleveland Clinic.   He is planning to work with critical care patients, but looks forward to the many possibilities open to a Respiratory Therapist. 

He says: “One thing that you get with Respiratory Care is that it’s so diverse. You don’t necessarily have to work in a hospital to be a Respiratory Therapist. “

For people interested in considering a career in Respiratory Care, Doug suggests that they spend time talking with and observing people in the field.  “Take more than one day to shadow”, he says.  “If you’re not familiar with Respiratory Therapy, maybe even take 3 or 4 days on different shifts to shadow employees and to see what their experience is really like.” 

Overall, he says: “I highly recommend Respiratory Care.  It’s a great career, and it’s a great field for me.”

For Luz Reyes, the decision to study Radiologic Technology at BGSU Firelands meant a new start after a personal tragedy.  She says “My story started when I lost a daughter 4 years ago. She was handicapped.  She was 17 ½ years old, and I dedicated all my life to take care of her.  And when she passed away I had all this time, and I didn’t know what to do.”

Faced with the question of what to do next, she turned to her family: “I talked to my sister and said ‘what should I do?’ and she said ‘Go back to school’.  I said ‘To do what?  I’m 44 years old.’”  After careful thought, Luz decided to enroll at BGSU Firelands and pursue a career as a Radiologic Technician.

As a returning student, Luz faced the uncertainty of going to school after being away from the classroom for many years.  A native of Puerto Rico, Luz was also concerned about her language skills.  Her strongest worry, though, was about the needs of her family.  She says “I knew it was going to be a big challenge to me because at that time I was with 3 kids.  2 of them were handicapped, one of them was in high school, and my husband was in the military.  He served 2 terms in Iraq.  And I was going to school.  So it was an experience.”

However, her hard work and determination paid off: “Once I got into the program, and I felt comfortable, I thought ‘I’m a person who’ll do 110%’. And so it was a great thing for me.  It was a challenge, and I challenged myself, and I came in the top of my class.”

Luz says that she is grateful for the support of the Director of the program, who “was always telling me ‘Luz, you can do it, you can do it. Go for it’.  She was my adviser, and guided me through the whole process.” She also says that being older than many of her classmates didn’t bother her: “The other students were great.  I was the oldest one in the class.  The kids were in their 20s, and I felt like the mother of all of them.”

When asked her advice for adult students thinking about returning to school she says: “Do it.  Do it.  It’s worth it, it’s rewarding.  You put your mind and your emphasis, and tell your self ‘I’m going to do it. I have the power’, and do it.  If I can do it, anybody else can do it. 

Luz says that the training in the Radiologic Technology program is hands-on and practical: “Everything we practiced in class, we read the book, we practiced, and we took an exam.  One time I would be the Tech, and the next I would be the patient, and we practiced on each other.”

She also says the program is also strongly science-based, which can require a lot of hard work.  She says “Some of the classes were very intensive, like Pathophysiology.  I studied every single day.  I slept with that book – but I passed the test!”

According to Luz, an advantage of the program, and one of the things she enjoyed most, is the clinical component: “In the clinical, you have the interaction with a real patient.  That’s a great thing because you’re taking the history, and you’re reporting that to the doctor so he can do a better evaluation of the pictures, because sometimes pictures don’t tell the whole story.  You have to go and get a little background of that patient.  So I feel that I’m doing something to help the doctor help that patient to find out what’s wrong. 

Luz suggests that people interested in Radiologic Technology spend time observing Radiologic Technologists on the job.  “This program asks you to shadow somebody, and that’s a great thing.  Shadow 2 days in different places and check it out.  Because there are a lot of things that the book doesn’t say, that you may not learn in the lab.  (You’ll benefit from) following a Tech during examinations with real patients.”

Ultimately, Luz says her experience in her career so far has been worth the hard work.  She says “I love it.  I love it, I’m so excited. It’s a wonderful experience. I love my field.  I feel it’s the field I was meant to be in.”