MCC Campus Connections Podcast: Episode 13

Geovanny Mayorga  0:06  
Well, hello and welcome once again to campus connections, a podcast dedicated to getting to know one another at Midwestern Career College, once again, we are recording from Evergreen Park and with me as a co host today is Miss Jennifer green, how are
Jennifer Green  0:22  
you? Hi, I'm wonderful. Thank you for having me again today.
Geovanny Mayorga  0:26  
It's very lovely to have you once again at your campus, and today we are happy. We are sitting in a different room that we were last time. Today we are in our dental lab. And which program do we have here.
Jennifer Green  0:41  
We have dental assistant, surgical tech, sterile processing and medical assisting.
Geovanny Mayorga  0:48  
Oh, thank you. Just meant for this particular we have
Jennifer Green  0:52  
dental technicians.
Geovanny Mayorga  0:54  
Yes, we don't. We don't have search tech here in the dental lab.
Jennifer Green  0:58  
You don't have to plug all of them in. We did
Geovanny Mayorga  1:02  
that last time. Yeah, we're very excited today to have two of our current students, and most importantly, they are student ambassadors. So we have with us today, Crystal Smith, and I know I'm not gonna get this correct. 1010, yeah, yes. Ellis, yes.
Tanjea Ellis  1:29  
Welcome. How are you? I'm doing great. How about yourself?
Geovanny Mayorga  1:33  
Perfect, doing wonderful. Thank you for coming, Crystal.
Crystal Smith  1:37  
How are you? I am doing, swell. Excellent.
Geovanny Mayorga  1:43  
Awesome to have you. Our ambassador program is a newer program. This is only the second class, so you are part of the second class of student ambassadors that we have. How is how is that process? Crystal? Let's start with you. How's that process?
Crystal Smith  2:00  
It's good. It's definitely challenging, because we have to battle the time, because manage our time, because we're in school as well. We have to get students engaged. We have to get them to put aside their own personal things and get involved, and potentially get others involved. So creating, like, small leadership roles inside of leadership roles,
Geovanny Mayorga  2:28  
right, right. How about you challenging, yeah, how about you 10?
Tanjea Ellis  2:31  
Yeah, I agree. I'm not gonna lie. I totally agree. It has been semi challenging, especially considering the fact that I'm getting close to graduating, so I'm trying to juggle doing finals and doing midterms and everything work alone, and then trying to get, like she said, the other students involved with us, and trying to, you know, do videos and base it off of performance from them and ourselves, it's been one of those challenging moments, but for the most part, I I took the job, and I'm doing it fine to well to the best of my ability, as far as I can tell,
Geovanny Mayorga  3:12  
yeah, the student investor program, there's an application process, an interview process, some of The responsibilities are to be peer mentor, which you talked a little bit about, to be a brand ambassador, to help organize activities. Have you done many activities? Any student led activities?
Crystal Smith  3:34  
I have, I've put together, like, a few things where, like small classroom activities, like we have group chats and just like, whoever can go and put their referral up first, and I will get to, like, Starbucks or something, small little thing. So I know if, if I can do a small thing like that, then I know that MCC can do it. So that'll be something that potentially could be done, whoever can get the most likes on, you know, social media can win a cute crewneck because all the girls,
Geovanny Mayorga  4:11  
they're very nice. I know that. And you know, I'll ask for your opinion this, but I know that evergreen Park does a lot of student led or student activities to provide that campus environment. What are some of the things that you've done, that you've seen or like would like to do?
Crystal Smith  4:33  
I've seen the the headshot thing for LinkedIn, headshots. I think that was really cool, because I just got on LinkedIn. So I'm official. I'm on LinkedIn, and I've been pressing getting my connections and to have your school just tell you to come dressed up and get a head shot so that they can, you know, put your best face forward and get your career started. Is amazing. I. So that's something that I saw, that I was impressed. That was impressive. You don't come to that, then you just
Geovanny Mayorga  5:07  
right, you're missing out good opportunity. How about you? Tanya, what activities have you seen here that you like or that you would like to see, as a student,
Tanjea Ellis  5:22  
orientation,
Geovanny Mayorga  5:24  
in person. Orientation,
Jennifer Green  5:27  
yes, we just came back off of covid. We were virtual, so we just maybe a couple now that we've been doing in person, and they've been invited out to orientation that we've done in person. That was fine, yeah, you were here when we did it. But I have one for you, and she's not gonna, she's not gonna, maybe not. It's not gonna even come to her mind to say it. We had, we hosted CPS here, oh, yeah, and we hosted the CPS students, and they came in and a school, a CPS school. Yes, CPS school. So they were high school students that all came over, and they were going from classroom to classroom. And I must say, Miss Tanya took control of that classroom with the students that were in there. She was showing them everything. And I'm like, Oh, girl, she did it. And it was that interaction, because all of the students got a chance to show their skills to the high school students. And we have a lot of them that say, oh, I want to come here. Yeah, I like this. So that was one of the that was a big thing that we had for them. Yeah. 10, yeah.
Geovanny Mayorga  6:35  
Which program are you doing? Clinical medical assistant. Clinical medical assistant. And you are, like you said towards the end, you actually just finished your externship.
Tanjea Ellis  6:44  
Yes, I finished my externship on Monday.
Jennifer Green  6:48  
Congratulations. Now
Geovanny Mayorga  6:50  
you just have to get that certificate. Are there any exams you have to take, or anything, any like certification
Jennifer Green  6:58  
exams they do once they finish, they can sit for their certification. And because they are doing extern, they get to sit within AMT, which is American medical technologist, to get their registered medical assistant. And they can sit there are a lot of other ones that are out there, but that's one of the big ones that they can
Geovanny Mayorga  7:19  
crystal what program are you doing?
Crystal Smith  7:21  
I'm doing the Surgical Technology Program,
Geovanny Mayorga  7:24  
and you are just starting your
Crystal Smith  7:28  
externship. Yeah, I started yesterday. Oh, okay, nice. You excited? Yeah, that was, it was it was amazing. I thought I was gonna be like, scared, because I didn't know it's my first time in the OR, and I'm glad it won't be last
Geovanny Mayorga  7:43  
I know you were telling me what you want to see. And I'm like, yeah, no, I passed. Tell her what you want to see.
Crystal Smith  7:53  
So I was telling you that I want to see the procedure. I forgot ms, v is going to be mad at me, but I forgot the name of the procedure where they have to go through your gums in order to get into your sinuses. Oh, I couldn't tell you that minimally invasive. No surgery.
Geovanny Mayorga  8:12  
Minimally invasive. Yes,
Crystal Smith  8:17  
I just prayed neither of us have to ever experience it.
Jennifer Green  8:20  
But I do want to see it. I like those procedures, yeah, I'm a medical assistant by trade, yeah. And I love the procedures. I love them interesting. Yeah.
Geovanny Mayorga  8:30  
So you both have already now been through the academic portion. Now, Tanya, you've done your practice. Crystal, you're starting your practice. What are some of the highlights going through your program now going into practice? Do you would like to share with prospective students,
Crystal Smith  8:51  
highlights, academic highlights? Mines would be that I got an A in math. Yeah, I am not a mathematician. I do not like math whatsoever. But this math teacher, shout out to Mr. West. He is. He did a really good job with this math class because it was different. I've never, I didn't, I didn't I didn't think you could do a discussion post in the math class. But it was just like, it was just mind boggling all the different things that he was pulling out with just a drip of water. How many drips of water would it take to fill right? How many drips of water like, would you fix a leaking faucet like? And then it went from a leaking faucet to how many cups of water would it take, or how many bathtubs would it feel if you just didn't stop this one leaking faucet? So that's interesting. The math you need to fix that? Yes, you
Speaker 1  9:59  
gotta go broke. It if you don't fix it.
Crystal Smith  10:05  
A lot of different posts like that that got you really interested in not just a plus b equals c times two, you know, it's just, it was that type of math too, but it was just, it was,
Geovanny Mayorga  10:16  
I didn't expect that answer in medical. Yeah, yeah. How about you? It's a highlight for you.
Tanjea Ellis  10:25  
Tanya, the whole thing in itself, honestly, I'm not gonna lie. This program alone was something that I saw myself doing, but didn't see myself doing at the same time and throughout the whole process, like, I've been finding out different things about the human body, about my body alone. Like it was weird, it was crazy, but the fact that I managed to pull out a 4.0 this entire time was something that was like, dang, you've been playing around in school all this time. You smart. For real. Girl, stop playing, especially considering, like, I have to give medicine to people if I mess up on giving a doses to somebody that could potentially kill them. So I have to know what it is and I'm doing, and have that mindset, like, you know this, you know you know what you're doing. So when you add this, subtract this, multiply this, the bad thing you're gonna get this, and this is the dosage you supposed to get. This person forgive yourself, because if you don't, they could die. Like, damn
Geovanny Mayorga  11:44  
serious, true. I mean, medicine
Jennifer Green  11:47  
is serious,
Tanjea Ellis  11:48  
very and I've noticed that because during externship, we have to do a lot of injections, like I learned, injections at the end, right before it was time for us to go to externship. So it was, it definitely was Miss green. It was right before we did. So it was, it was like, Can I already knew it? So I'm like, Okay, I could apply what I'm doing right now to what I learned from school. And I'm like, okay, this person come in, I gotta get this person the injection. And then five seconds later, next patient come in, I gotta get this person the injection.
Jennifer Green  12:39  
Question for you, yes. So with learning that and just listening to what you're saying, because it was at the end, do you think it would be better for program wise to move that sooner in your program? No, no, it was fine.
Tanjea Ellis  12:54  
It was perfect where it was because it was like, this is something fresh in my head. I just learned this, so it's no way I could mess up on something I just learned, okay, like, I mean, I don't understand, I don't know how other people operate, but it was, like, very fitting for the moment for me to go from that and as soon as I go in here, I'm rooming somebody, and after I room them, They can I get my flu shot sure I know where that go? That's intramuscular. It was perfect.
Crystal Smith  13:30  
Like, would it be helpful to do the injections with each muscle that you or, like, I don't know, like, kind of, like, go with the muscle, the injection, go with the muscle. Or rehearse the start rehearsing as they're going. What you mean?
Jennifer Green  13:51  
I kind of, I kind of know where she's going, on the
Crystal Smith  13:53  
mannequin, not so much. Oh, we don't do mannequin. Oh, you know what I mean. But I mean, just like to
Jennifer Green  14:00  
get the where they learn it in that area. Well, the way we have our medical assistant program broken down your learning skills all the way through, oh and it in Section different classes is where you get that specialty. So at the end of our second term, you get that specialty for injections itself. But we teach you everything from day one. You know, yeah, because I'm in I'm the one that have everybody. It's like, Hey, start day one teaching. Don't wait until you get to that particular class to start teaching skills, because by time you get to that class, you already skilled at it, so you're just practicing and getting that practicing it, so they learn it throughout the whole program. We start day one, take invite
Geovanny Mayorga  14:52  
us and yeah, where did you do your externship?
Tanjea Ellis  14:55  
I did my externship at the clinic right across the street. From Trinity hospital on East Side. It's 2301 East, 93rd I believe, if I'm not mistaken,
Geovanny Mayorga  15:09  
and how was it? How long? How long was the externship? Externship took me
Tanjea Ellis  15:15  
a month. It did. It took a month, but one month, and it was, it was 160,060 565 hours. It would have taken me longer, because originally I was supposed to do Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. But when I got there, I asked, like, Can I do every day, please? Because they were saying that they needed somebody to help out every day. What can I do every day? And they was like, Sure, sure. I'm like, Okay, that'll work. I started on Wednesday the 28th of what was that? Um, August, August? Yep, August 28 and I finished on October 1,
Crystal Smith  16:00  
and they offered you a job too. No,
Tanjea Ellis  16:07  
no. It's so crazy because, like, I was expecting that Candace, I don't know why. It was just like, you know, you you doing so much good work. Everybody sees it, the patience, and everybody comes in and tell you, Oh my god, I love her. Keep her, keep her. And I didn't get killed, but I was told I would be hopefully. But no, yeah, I'm not doubting it. Now, that's one thing I'm not doing. I'm not doubting it, and I'm not saying that they, you know, reneged on what they said. Now I'm just waiting on the process. Right? The recruiter, recruiters got to reach out, and if they don't reach out in time, you reach out. So I'm like, I'm slowly waiting. I just finished on Monday. I'm not gonna rush this process.
Jennifer Green  16:58  
You gotta go through change. You gotta go through Hey,
Tanjea Ellis  17:03  
you know, I'm just people that just be wanting so much. I be wanting so much, and I be expecting myself to, you know, just automatically, just jump into stuff. Patience is, like those things I gotta really, really workable
Jennifer Green  17:26  
ambassador program. She was all I'm I will tell you Yes, I am her instructor.
Tanjea Ellis  17:32  
Yes, the best I am her instructor,
Jennifer Green  17:37  
who has had her for a whole year. Yes, so it is, I've learned her. I've learned she did it with the ambassador program. She was like, Well, I don't know. I want it. I don't know. I don't know. I said, Girl, just do it. Go for it. Do this right now. So she got in there, she did, and I was like, Okay, Now calm down. Calm down. It's gonna come. Everything we say is in decency and in order, and you gotta, that's you gonna learn in medicine, is patience, yes, yeah, you gotta learn patience. Now, you
Geovanny Mayorga  18:07  
did apply for for a job there with that clinic. I did just a matter of waiting other
Tanjea Ellis  18:13  
places too. I didn't just throw out my eggs, of course,
Geovanny Mayorga  18:16  
right? You have
Jennifer Green  18:18  
to, yeah, it's gonna come Yeah,
Geovanny Mayorga  18:21  
Crystal, where are you placed at?
Crystal Smith  18:23  
I'm placed at St Catherine in East Chicago, Indiana. Nice, cool place. Really nice, nice place. So it
Geovanny Mayorga  18:33  
sounds like the placements were the right ones, and you're
Crystal Smith  18:36  
glad they put me there. I'm so glad. Excellent.
Geovanny Mayorga  18:41  
One of the things that we spoke about when we did your episode, Miss green, was how things are never in a straight line, and that you don't necessarily end up right away where you thought you would end up, or where you know you thought you would have a different path, and then life happens and you end up in different path. And I think both of you, as we spoke about, have a little bit of that. Let's start with education, because both of you are educated or have experience in different schools. So let's talk a little bit about that crystal. Where did you start your schooling?
Crystal Smith  19:19  
I started at uh Verve college and I and went back to Ivy Tech Community College in Crown Point as a LPN student. Yeah.
Geovanny Mayorga  19:32  
And what was it that you've always wanted to be in medicine? Oh, yeah, yep, yep.
Crystal Smith  19:37  
Always. My uh grandmother is a registered nurse. She retired twice, and she loved it. Aunties nurses. It's a family of nurses. Oh, wow. And it, it was just bloodline, bloodline of helpers. So you know, helping, healing hands. So it was it wasn't it wasn't hard you don't want to do it, or for me to have a love to do it. So it was just never, it was. It was never hard. It was just always hard finding the right path to get there, right? It was finances or family situations or just like regular life.
Geovanny Mayorga  20:22  
Ivy Tech, is that a community college, or is that a
Crystal Smith  20:24  
community college? Community College. Ivy Tech
Jennifer Green  20:27  
that's in Indiana, yes.
Geovanny Mayorga  20:31  
How long were you there?
Crystal Smith  20:33  
I was there during covid, from 2019 to No, 2018 and 2019 so I spent the year doing, doing the prerequisites, got accepted to the LPN program, and then Sally failed out of me, sirs too, yeah.
Geovanny Mayorga  20:54  
So did you graduate from there or just now? Where'd you? Where'd you go after that? I came here. Okay, how'd you find Midwestern Career College after
Crystal Smith  21:08  
I get my I had about a month of just I was a little bit just small mind depression. I thought, like all these laws, you have to be a nurse, nursing, nurse, nursing, that all shout out to nurses, because nurses are the bomb. Okay, there's nothing wrong with nursing. Nothing wrong with nurses. I think nurses are, you know,
Geovanny Mayorga  21:29  
very stressful jobs, a shortage, still shortage of nurses.
Crystal Smith  21:33  
Stressful, underpaid. It should be more paid, but, um, I didn't love it. And anything that I love I succeed at. So I'm like, Ah, so when that hit me, I'm like, Okay, go find what you love. Because I was only doing this because somebody did it or something. It was always another motive. It was not mine, right? So I found something. I'm like, Wait, what is this? You know? What is this? No, and when I seen, you know, the I've always loved Grey's Anatomy, and I've always wondered, what are the people who are standing around the surgeon? Who are they? Why are they? Why do they exist? What are they doing? So when I found out how close I was to being what they were, which were Surgical technologists, I thought that a surgical technologist was somebody who fixed cables inside of the
Speaker 1  22:34  
surgery room, because that's something Sure. Are they
Crystal Smith  22:39  
electronic, you know, engineers in there or something. No, no, they assist the surgeon. Okay, so, and I'm like, You know what? Let me delve deeper into this. And when I did my research, and I'm a woman of Christian faith, so I say, I pray My God. Say, God, Jesus, if you want me to go do this, just make it easy. And Benjamin called After I reached out, and I believe he's just, was God saying, because it was just smooth, like
Geovanny Mayorga  23:12  
banner, yes. Ben, Benjamin, nice.
Jennifer Green  23:17  
Now let's ask question, Do you
Crystal Smith  23:19  
love it. I love this. Now I could tell, like I've been at places where I could go into the job and know my mind would be in the parking lot, like I'm not
Geovanny Mayorga  23:30  
coming back here. Oh, well, that's good to know right, right off the bat,
Crystal Smith  23:33  
you know. Okay, I know if I'm not gonna do it. I know I can internally, know if I'm forcing myself to be somewhere I went into now, if I'm always have nerves, because it's a new place, you know, it's a new field. Things are new to me. I am learning a skill that I've never had before. But I'm not queasy at the sight of blood. I'm not, you know, grossed out by some of the, you know, weirdest, wormiest things. You know, this weird things about me. This is the field for me.
Geovanny Mayorga  24:06  
Okay, yes, of course, there's nothing weird about that. It's just who you are that's great.
Crystal Smith  24:12  
So, yeah, I love that. I think this is for me.
Geovanny Mayorga  24:17  
Nice. Tanya, how did you where did you start schooling?
Tanjea Ellis  24:23  
I started schooling at Chicago State University.
Geovanny Mayorga  24:27  
How was that? It was cool.
Tanjea Ellis  24:31  
It was just the patience thing coming in again, the fact that it was not moving as fast as I wanted it to. I actually went to Chicago State for the nursing program, and like I said, it was not moving like I wanted it to. It wasn't moving fast enough. I had to do all these different prerequisites. And I'm like, Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And I ended up having my first child, and I left. Because my grades declined, and once they started going down, it was over with like, no, I got to get back focused. This is not what I want to do right now. At this moment, I have a baby coming in the world. I can't do this. And I left after I had my son, I ended up going to Kenny the king was there for a minute. My major switched from nursing to communications. Go figure, I'm sitting here and I'm telling y'all, I'm nervous, but I wanted to do something like this. This crazy. You did a great job, though, but I switched my majors to communications, and then it went from regular communications to Broadcast Communications. And then I had my second child, and I'm like, Is this really what I want to do? No, no, no. So I stopped from doing that. I switched my major to accounting Crazy, right? Yeah. I switched it to accounting, and I actually graduated from Kenny the king with an Associates in accounting, and I had all intention on going and getting my bachelor's and then becoming a CPA, and that didn't work out. I stopped liking it. It was something that I wasn't, you know, happy about doing anymore. And I switched my major again, and this time, I went to hair school.
Tanjea Ellis  26:42  
I went to hair school and hair, don't get me wrong, hair school was like, Grade A for me. It was one of those things that I felt like, Oh, I've been doing hair all my life. Like, all I wanted to do was hair, I'm gonna stick with this. This is for me. This is for me. Yeah, no, it's not I went I learned how to do nails while I was there, and because I learned how to do nails, I ended up making my own business. I have a business called two cheese grippers. That's where you get the long nails and all the little crazy designs and stuff I can actually do that. So I was proud of myself. I made this a business, had my own little setup in my home, and I'm like, This is not what I want to do. Three o'clock in the morning. No lie, three o'clock in the morning, I was sitting up, and I'm like, God, I don't know what I'm finna do. By this time, I actually have my third child. I don't know what I'm gonna do. What am I gonna do? Like, I don't wanna, I can't just be doing nails all the time. Like, it's something that I don't wanna do. No more. Three o'clock in the morning got up, was on my computer, just surfing. I'm like, I think I want to go back to medical school. I'm like, medical school near me. As soon as I put that in, voila. I'm like, that's why I'm taking my kids to the doctor. Where did this go from? Like, Oh, really. And when I came here, I'm like, this the school, like, I used to go to the clinic in here, like, this was the women's, the Women's Health Clinic in this building, this whole area down here, everything that we're doing right now was the Women's Health Clinic. This is where I was coming to get all of my, you know, my procedures and everything done while I was pregnant. So how did this become the place that I would be coming to school? Like it was weird, and I'm like, You know what? Yep. And ever since then, it was, like everything started falling in line for me life. I know that I was about to start tearing up a little bit. I'm sorry. Life started, you know, it started aligning. In a sense, it was like all those things that I was doing at the beginning, it wasn't meant for me, but what I wanted to do from the beginning, which was nursing school, it all started falling back, even though this is, like, they consider us under them. But technically, I'm doing the same thing you're doing. I can actually do a little more than you can. So I'm like, okay, that's what I wanted to do from the beginning, so why not stick to it? You know, this was what you wanted from the beginning, and it just, you just had to go through all those different trials and tribulations before you could get to where you are now, and here I am now. Like I said, I got a 4.0 GPA. That's something I ain't never had. Even when I graduated with my associate's degree, I was an honor student. Then I had a three. Point out. And I was found with that, I was on the Dean list with a 3.0 I'm like, oh, okay, you was good girl. But to do this and have a 4.0 something that I didn't ever think that I could do on my own, and I'm doing it, yeah, I can give myself a lot of pets, a lot of hats on the back.
Geovanny Mayorga  30:22  
Well, it's definitely a beautiful story, and that's the reason why both of you are ambassadors. We talked about on our episode, your episode. How you know we each took very similar to your journey, similar journey. I mean, you started at a very prestigious college university, and then, hey, this is not for me. Then you had to find your way to the point where she also took, you know, taxes and all that stuff. Tell them your story,
Jennifer Green  30:53  
my story, in a short I started at my college career. Started at Virginia Union University. I stayed there for a couple of years. Said, One day, woke up and said, Now I'm going back home to my mama. I'm all the way in Virginia. My mother's here. So I left there and I came on back home life. Went to life in and doing everything it was. And it wasn't until later life I started doing everything, working as a paramedic. I started that going back to school. I was, well, in my 40s when I first went back to school to finish my degrees, because I hadn't started finishing them. So I finished them in my 40s. And when I had my kid, and I was 42 so I know about that, I was also in the RN program, and it was funny, because I was one class out from getting into the program, and they said, You're pregnant. I said, Oh, man, so that role got changed. And here I am, over here, and I'm like, okay, so I went medical assistant, started teaching and, yeah, and I do taxes, so which has nothing to do with medicine, but yeah, my road didn't start out like that. My road started and I just went with it. Wherever it was supposed to be. That's where I'm going. You know, in medicine, it is a good field to be in, because it's, it's open for you. You can make what it is, you know, during covid, when everybody was not working, and they were saying, Well, I'm not working. I said, Hm, I am. I'm in medicine, so we going to work, you know. So that is one of the fields that this field. It is an excellent field to get into, you know, so, yeah, my path, it didn't start off right. It went where it had to go. But you doing? I'm doing something I love. I'm doing something that I love, teaching that wasn't my path. I never had a path to teach. Like I'm not teaching nobody. But nepotism, I would say, got me to teaching because my niece was a program director at South Suburban, and she was like, I need you on my team. I said, Oh, okay, I've never taught nobody. She was like, come on. I was like, okay, and it's been uphill since then. I've been teaching ever since. And anybody ask me, What do I love doing teaching? I love teaching. I love my students. I love I love this one over here on that tape. I love it her, I would tell you, she, she, she just patted herself on the back. But I do it a lot. She is low key, smart. She is very, very, very intelligent. And sometimes we built and we built within her, how she became an ambassador, because we built it into her to have more confidence in herself. And you know, you could do this. No, you got this. You are making it through. And we've had talks. And there was challenges, oh, there was challenges of, I can't do this. Miss green. I'm done. I'm going home. I quit. No, you know, I'll see you tomorrow. Come on back. You know, get over that. Come on back. And we going to go on this path. Because, like I said, and when I did my interview, I said, sometimes you have people in your path that guides you to where it is you gotta go, and sometimes you ain't supposed to be on there. That guy will also tell you, No, you ain't supposed to be on that path. Or that guy will tell you, this is your path that you supposed to be on. And you two sitting here right now, you are on your path. This is where you supposed to be here at Midwestern Career College.
Geovanny Mayorga  34:37  
Yes, yeah, we, we spoke a lot about that. You know, when we did her episode about and I've, I've said this a lot, you both went to junior colleges. And even though junior colleges are not really big, they're still pretty big. Junior Colleges are pretty big, and you didn't necessarily find what you wanted at a junior college. That's why, you know, when we spoke, I said. And I've said this in the past, that institutions like ours, you know, career colleges are very important because they do fit a need for a lot of students that don't find what they their comfort level at either junior college or four year institution. So, you know, and I like, like yourself, thinking of, you know, your parent, your family, being a lot of nurses, and you're like, oh, I should be a nurse. You know myself, I found myself like that as well. And I spoke a little bit about that, a different episode where I wanted to be an engineer because I wanted to prove to everyone else that I could be an engineer, because my strongest things were math and science, but that that's not where I was happy at and I failed. I didn't fail, but I I spent a lot of time in that field without really wanting to be in that field. So I wasted a lot of time. Ended up being, you know, an older student like Miss green that finished programs late. And you know you're you're in your program with a bunch of younger, younger people, so it's a matter of finding yourself. And eventually you do get there. And I'm glad that you both were able to get there. And now it's just the start of, you know your next chapter. So as you know Tanya, you're finishing. You finish your program now you're in the midst of getting employed and Crystal you're going into now your practices. What? What does the future hold? What? What do you want to be? Tanja, do you still think about being an RN or, or, you think this would be a good start, and then we'll see where, where it takes you.
Tanjea Ellis  36:43  
I have, I have thought about it, about being an RN, still, I was just speaking to my mom about this the other day, like I feel like I could, you know, go on and actually, you know, complete that process that I originally was supposed to start. This was just like that stepping stone for me. Okay, I guess it was like the push I needed. And I give myself a lot of self doubt. I don't know why I'm like, one of those Debbie downers to myself like, oh, man, I don't want to do this. No more. I can't do this. But I think with this right here, it helped me a whole lot. I found myself taking care of my family members a lot now than before, when crazy conversation. But when I was in high school, I went to a high school that had careers. I went to semi so when I was there, my program was welding. We had a nursing program. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to make money then, and selling my projects from welding was helping me get money, so I was focused more on the money part. I mean, I'm focused on that now too, because who doesn't want or need money, but I also, like, feel like this is something that I could give back with. You know, my mom was diagnosed with leukemia when I was in high school, my senior year of high school, actually, so I knew all about the PICC lines and injecting the saline into her PICC line, the clearing and giving her her medicine. Like, I knew about this already, but it was just, you know, when you dealing with it at the moment, you kind of, like, shy away from it, like, I don't know. So I think at that time, when I went the first time for nursing, I was, I wanted to do it, but I wasn't mentally prepared. Yeah, now I feel like I'm mentally preparing myself for the next steps. So I'm all for going to school to be an RN, sure, but I got this under my belt right now. Of course, I'm gonna take this and run with it until I get to that part.
Jennifer Green  39:19  
You got life with a purpose now, yes, let me find my way. Now. You got life with a purpose.
Tanjea Ellis  39:25  
What am I gonna do? Man, exactly, and I definitely feel that wholeheartedly, cuz, baby, I ain't gonna I can't tell you that I knew I was because I didn't. I still kind of don't, but I'm getting there. I'm finding her. She is finding me, and we almost like this.
Jennifer Green  39:49  
You have to put that positive affirmation, I am a medical assistant, yet you did that. You know that's their positive affirmation. Who are you?
Tanjea Ellis  39:58  
A medical assistant? Yes, what's my name, and when
Jennifer Green  40:03  
you take those certifications, you're gonna have those credentials, them
Tanjea Ellis  40:08  
little and that's all I want to do. I've been talking about that. I'm like, Oh, I done, finished externship before graduation. I think I'm gonna wait till after graduation, because I'm not and I'm like, I know if I do this now. Oh, no, I was planning on taking my certification before graduation, and I still first. I still gotta focus on this 150 question, um, final that I got right now. I'm like, oh yes,
Jennifer Green  40:47  
yeah, you got this. You have
Geovanny Mayorga  40:54  
learned, yeah, exactly you've been through the worst part of it now, yes, Crystal, how about yourself? Um, because you're looking at procedures and all this stuff now.
Crystal Smith  41:06  
Oh yeah. So looking at the the scope of things pre med is not far for me. Wow. So as long as I jump all the way to pre med nursing like I can't say, It ain't no wrong with nursing, but I believe I can do better than that. I believe I could go further than my grandma or my aunts absolutely want me to be. You know, I believe I could be the first doctor in my family. I know this. I believe
Jennifer Green  41:42  
going to follow you throughout this journey. Yes,
Crystal Smith  41:45  
yes. So that's where I see myself.
Jennifer Green  41:48  
Pre med, okay? Doctor, Smith, doctor, yes, I see it. I see it. You see it, you get
Tanjea Ellis  41:56  
your practice. I'm going to be working with you, brother. We gotta be reckon again,
Geovanny Mayorga  42:05  
RN Ellis and Dr Smith
Tanjea Ellis  42:12  
all the way out there. No problem with that. Maybe further in love. And do that right now, maybe further down the line, then I might see that jump into my future, but right now,
Geovanny Mayorga  42:31  
that's how it should be, at your pace. Yeah, just go at your pace, what you're comfortable with, what you want to do, and just be happy with that. You don't have to go to anybody else's pace but yours.
Crystal Smith  42:44  
I like that. Yes,
Jennifer Green  42:47  
anything else on your end? No, no, well, no, what would I like to ask them? That was probably the final one. Your time here with us, your time here with us, here at MCC was that a good decision that you made to come here? Was that? Are you pleased with your choices? I am.
Crystal Smith  43:21  
This is the best decision I could ever make, yes, yes, because it put me where I needed to be, put me around the places that I needed to be around, put me in the positions that I needed to be around, connected me with the people that needed to be connected to. So yeah,
Jennifer Green  43:37  
solid, yes, solid, yes, yes, this was a win. Win. Wholeheartedly agreed, yes,
Tanjea Ellis  43:44  
Miss green, I promise you, if it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for you, and I tell you this all the time, and I even said this when I did my interview for ambassadors, if it weren't for Miss green, like I wouldn't have done it. I wouldn't have applied, I wouldn't have stuck it out. I probably would have been like, Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Miss green, if she mentioned it to me, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. And the next day, if she asks, yeah, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. Never did it. But with Miss green like she was my motivation. I ain't gonna lie, she was my motivation. Aside from my family, she was my extra motivation. She my family too. I ain't gonna lie, that's my family too. That's my family too. But if it wasn't for Miss green, I wouldn't I wouldn't be as far as I am, I wouldn't have taken this serious. I learned a lot in her class, like a lot, and I know it's a lot of students that was here when I started that could vouch for that as well. They might act like it, like they don't, but they know like she done. Pushed us, and when she pushed us, we got a lot further than we probably ever would have been if it wasn't for her not speaking on anybody else. But I could attest to the fact that my friend danisha. Danisha feels the same way I talk to her all the time. Ms green pushed both of us, and she actually was in the class with me when I had my interview for ambassadorship. She was because I'm like, stay with me. Stay with me. And she was like, I'ma stay I'm gonna stay me. And her are really close now I'm close with a lot of people that's in my class. Well, I say not a lot of them, but it's like two or three that I still talk to on a regular basis, that I could call and be like, Do y'all remember this? And they be like, No, I gotta go read the book I gained some friendships, family, all from being here. And I adore that. Yeah, I really appreciate it from the bottom. Like, if it, like I said, if it wasn't for her, I probably would have quit a long time ago. Crazy story, Miss Grant, I know you're gonna kill me. Oh no, I know you're gonna kill me. I love you. Though, the week before I ended externship, was in like a headspace of my self doubt again and some things was transpiring, and I was done, I had an email that I was about to send to externship. Until then, when I was done, I was quitting. I wrote it on Facebook Like, I done, came this far and I'm done. I'm quitting. I don't care. Like, don't call me. Don't say nothing to me. I'm done. So many people was on my status, like, you better stop you done. Came this far. Look at your grades. People started going to my old post of my grade, sending them to me like I was done. I was completely done. I was an externship, crying. That's how done I was. I was mad. I didn't it was like a lot of stuff was coming away. How I'm gonna get back and forth to externship started like happening, and I'm like, dang, I don't know how I'm finna finish what I'm gonna do. I don't have no money. I'm doing externship, and the hours of me being an externship is interfering with me going to my actual job, so I can't go to work to make money, so what I'm gonna do? And I literally had the email prepared for me to stop externship. The ladies at my externship, they put their money together, four of them, and bought me a 30 day bus pass, and I was crying, but it was happy to use. But at the same time, it was like, dang, like, Y'all, you know, y'all helping me, y'all feel like, y'all believe in me as much as I wanted to believe in myself at this moment. And it was like, Dang okay, what would miss green do? I'm like, she gonna cuss me out. She gonna tell me. I'm like, she gonna, she gonna get me. She gonna, she gonna get me if I tell her that I'm done. And I'm like, in the back of my head, I all, I kept hearing her in her mouth. Was her saying, You came this far, and you think, I'm finna, let this happen. So I'm like, oh my god, okay. The next day I went, I was trying to get back in the back head space. I was slowly sinking. I wasn't there. And then I'm like, okay, you know what these women done did this for you. They done helped you out. You got to prove to them that this is what you want. You got to prove to yourself that this is what you want. You got three kids at home. You start from doing this, something that's going to potentially set y'all up for life, and you stop from doing this because of small, tedious things getting in your way. What are you actually teaching them? What are you actually doing for your kids? Are you showing them? Is failure. You're showing them that I like to quit. It, but you yelling at them, telling them that they can't quit, right? So I had to toughen up and get it together. And I continued, and I finished. Yay me, and
Jennifer Green  50:21  
I'm glad I never got that email, because it would have been a whole lot more after that conversation. It was,
Tanjea Ellis  50:33  
in my sense, I deleted it this morning because I didn't want to accidentally send me because then, yeah, because I'm like,
Jennifer Green  50:42  
Oh, we would have had a nice, long conversation.
Tanjea Ellis  50:45  
It went away from my empty folder. That's good. Oh no, it didn't look that's good. Hold on. Delete it.
Jennifer Green  50:54  
Look at that. Delete it. That's what I say.
Crystal Smith  50:57  
Deleted in there. Sorry to inform you. My,
Tanjea Ellis  51:07  
you was a part of Franklin, was a part of it. She was a part of it. And the two ladies that was the directors at the site, was a part of it.
Jennifer Green  51:19  
It would never have made it that far? Yeah, it would have just came out and we read it, and that would have been the end of it. There was no way, no way, absolutely.
Geovanny Mayorga  51:31  
What clinic is this? Again, what clinic is this trinity?
Tanjea Ellis  51:35  
The clinic right across the street from Trinity,
Jennifer Green  51:39  
yeah, they're connected with Trinity advocate, Trinity southeast.
Geovanny Mayorga  51:45  
Well, thank you to those ladies. Yes, very nice and thoughtful of them.
Jennifer Green  51:50  
Yes, you have a village, and it takes a village. And I always tell them that it takes it. And I had that conversation. I asked somebody the other day our village, what is our village doing? I grew up in a time where we had a village where everybody sought out and would look out for you, and I instilled that, that's why their class is we built a family within the classroom. You know, everybody has that village that we depend on. And, yeah, yeah. And she adopted me, and there was no way she was quitting. If I had to go and pick her up every single day, there was no way she was quitting.
Geovanny Mayorga  52:30  
It's a beautiful story.
Jennifer Green  52:34  
Go girl, ear hooks, yes.
Geovanny Mayorga  52:38  
And it's a reminder, I think, to all of us to always remember that you're not alone, because there's always people willing to help.
Jennifer Green  52:47  
Yes, and students have challenges, and don't be afraid to ask. You know, don't be afraid to share that you have instructors. You have Hey, you got me. You know, that's why I said and first thing I said in her interview, I tell them, I said, You're mine, you're mine. When I when I interview with you, you're mine, you know, you go to MCC Sure, but you are mine. I am here to make sure you get what it is that you need out of this program. I've been in your room, probably it's like, Hey, come on. I'm here. Everybody sees my presence. You are mine, and you invest in us, and I'm going to invest in you so we don't get you where you got to go. You know, my door is always open. And that's that's for any student that's here that hears this, that is listening, my door is always open. You know, my door is open. I will try to help you, whichever way I can. I I ain't got that much, but I can help. We gonna figure it out, you know, because if this is your path and this is what you want to do, we're gonna make sure you get there.
Geovanny Mayorga  53:49  
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing your story that's very impactful and very important for other students. So as we end our Student Ambassador episode, Tanja Ellis and Crystal just crystal Smith. Thank you so much for being here and recording with us today.
Crystal Smith  54:14  
Thank you for having me.
Geovanny Mayorga  54:17  
Reminder to our listeners to follow us on YouTube, Spotify, Amazon music and Apple podcast. So thank you to you too for sharing your story. Thank you to Ms green for being with us today, and we'll talk to you in the next episode.
Jennifer Green  54:37  
All right, thank you. I got y'all.