When Joyce DeGennaro, \u201903, decided to apply for the College of Nursing\u2019s accelerated B.S.N. program, she needed some assistance to help ease the financial burden of pursuing another degree. After all, she was a little older, and had a 6-month-old baby and mortgage at the time. That\u2019s when she discovered the Femmes de Coeur scholarship, for which she applied and was awarded, helping her to pay for tuition and books, and graduate without student-loan debt in 2009.<\/p>\n
Femmes de Coeur (Women of Heart) is an Orlando-based, not-for-profit volunteer organization that regularly hosts fundraising events to support numerous local community projects, including nursing scholarships at UCF, Valencia College, Seminole State College and the Florida Hospital\u2019s Adventist University of Health Sciences.<\/p>\n
Becoming a nurse wasn\u2019t DeGennaro\u2019s original plan, however. She grew up thinking she wanted to become a counselor or forensic psychologist, which is why she earned her first UCF bachelor\u2019s degree in psychology, with a minor in criminal justice, in 2003. But, it was her work in Florida Hospital\u2019s inpatient placement program that inspired her to go back to school to become a nurse.<\/p>\n
Forever thankful for her opportunity to follow her passion, DeGennaro recently had the opportunity to participate in Femmes de Coeur\u2019s annual dance competition, \u201cLet Us Entertain You,\u201d which raises money for exact scholarship that helped put her through nursing school.<\/p>\n
She had no previous dance experience before the competition, but was in good hands with her 19-year dancing veteran and partner, Tony Sterling. The pair practiced twice a week since March, and took the stage June 14 in the ballroom at Church Street Station, dancing the West Coast Swing to Florida-Georgia Line\u2019s \u201cCruise.\u201d While they didn\u2019t take the top prize, they did place third, which means about $10,000 in nursing scholarships for UCF.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my way of being able to give back to something that helped me.\u201d DeGennaro says.<\/p>\n
She also gives back daily, in a different way \u2014 helping to educate future nurses in the College of Nursing, where she was hired as a permanent nursing instructor in January.<\/p>\n
Her journey from practical to practicum began while she was working as a nurse in the multisystem-transplant ICU at Florida Hospital South, where she became a certified preceptor and discovered a love for teaching. So, once again, DeGennaro re-enrolled at UCF \u2014 this time in the nurse educator master\u2019s program, from which she graduated in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being a nurse,\u201d she says. \u201cI love caring for people. [But,] as a nurse educator, I\u2019m able to impart my knowledge and experience into my students. Every time they help or care for someone, I feel as though I\u2019m a part of it. So, in essence, I\u2019m able to touch more people\u2019s lives than ever before!\u201d<\/p>\n
While she\u2019s not planning to make a career out of dancing, DeGennaro is planning to continue her UCF education, beginning her Ph.D. in summer 2016, with plans to do research in critical care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UCF alumna and instructor puts on her dancing shoes to help raise money for nursing students<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":66986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[6,17],"tags":[4869,202],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-66985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-medicine","tag-college-of-nursing","tag-alumni"],"yoast_head":"\n