In celebration of National Nurses Month, NOVA is highlighting 2024 grad Nour Alamiri. Earlier in her undergraduate years, Nour had planned to pursue a pre-med career. However, her focus shifted to anthropology and bioethics.
Despite her lifelong aspiration to work in healthcare, she wasn't sure of her specific path, but nursing always lingered in the back of her mind. After almost ten years of working in public health, Nour is now pursuing her passion for nursing. Just days before her May 12 graduation, she attended the nursing pinning ceremony at the Medical Education Campus, where she was also the speaker for the graduating nursing class.
A pinning ceremony is a long-held nursing tradition that marks the transition from nursing student to nurse. She and her classmates will go on to sit for the RN board exam, the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX), in the coming months.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background:
I am an Iraqi American, born to two Iraqi immigrants and raised in Fairfax, Va., where I have lived my whole life.
I earned a bachelor's in anthropology and bioethics and a master of public health (MPH) from the University of Virginia. After graduating, I began my public health career focusing on health education, community outreach, and harm reduction.
My passion is ensuring underserved communities have access to quality healthcare. I've worked in various public health roles, including with immigrant communities and undergraduate students, as well as in substance use prevention across Virginia at the state and local levels.
What brought you to NOVA?
I've worked in public health for many years and reached a point in my career where the only way to stay engaged with communities was to shift toward a more clinical focus. That's where my passion lies, and my personal skill set excels when I'm directly engaging with people—in the trenches with community members and working hands-on with them.
I always wanted to have direct patient interaction but with a more clinical component. Nursing was on my mind, but I was only able to pivot in my career once I found NOVA, where I could pursue prerequisite courses for the nursing major while working full-time in public health.
NOVA offered weekend and night classes, which I hadn’t found at four-year institutions in the area. This allowed me to pursue my passion for nursing at my own pace while continuing to work full-time in public health. I gradually returned to higher education, taking one class per semester and building my confidence by completing prerequisites and science classes.
Finally, after finishing the prerequisites, I mustered the courage to apply to the nursing program. After getting accepted, I stopped working full-time and pursued a nursing major full-time at NOVA.
Tell us about your experience at NOVA (i.e., professors you've liked and friends you've met):
I love that NOVA provides a quality education to all community members regardless of their background. The diversity of the student body at NOVA was remarkable. My classmates came from all walks of life: teenagers fresh out of high school, parents with multiple children, professionals making career changes, and everything in between. Learning from such varied life experiences was a beautiful aspect of my education at NOVA. We learned from professors, course materials, and each other.
What would you tell a new nursing student at NOVA?
Believe in yourself and keep trying; you will make it through! The best investment you can make is in yourself! Never give up, no matter how hard the road may be.
Also, never suffer in silence. What I love most about NOVA is that they meet you where you are and provide excellent resources to support your health and well-being, including financial assistance, health and mental health resources, and tutoring. Reach out for help and get the support you need. I've never encountered staff like the staff at NOVA who genuinely want you to succeed. Know that there are people there who will help you through the program.
Talk about your experience of being voted class speaker for the pinning ceremony:
It was a true honor. I looked forward to the pinning ceremony, but I was shocked and flattered when I found out that I was the one nominated to speak. Summarizing our two years in the program was the biggest challenge in preparing my speech. The nursing program was incredibly rigorous and demanding, challenging us personally and professionally.
Crafting my speech was a healing experience as I reflected on the past two years. While I wanted to recognize my classmates' impact on me, my favorite part of the speech was acknowledging nurses' profound impact on patients. The Pinning Ceremony felt surreal since the feeling of graduation hadn't fully sunk in yet. I'm certain it'll hit me at some point during the summer.
Where do you see yourself after NOVA?
In the long term, I want to pursue a career in public health nursing, leveraging both my nursing skills and my background in public health to serve marginalized and underserved communities. In the short term, I've accepted a position as an ER nurse at INOVA Fairfax Hospital. That's where I'll be focusing for now.
Do you have any final thoughts?
I've been missing my mom a lot this past week. She was the best pharmacist—a real community hero who advocated for her patients at their most vulnerable moments. I wish I had more memories of her as a pharmacist, but I'm carrying on her legacy through my nursing career. Since I was so young when she passed away, I didn't even know at the time that I wanted to pursue nursing. But the more I'm involved in this career, the more connected I feel to her. My sisters and dad tell me they see my mom in me, and it's been the most beautiful experience.
