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Success Stories

Building Her Own Legacy

A common question asked of recent National College graduates who are featured in the National News is “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” Most, imbued by the confidence and success they get from completing their educational programs, have ambitious answers. But few can match the accomplishments of Crystal McDowell, who received her medical assisting degree from the Danville, Virginia campus in 2000.

Crystal enrolled at the campus in 1998, like many students, with just a general idea of what she wanted to do. “I knew I wanted to go into [the medical field],” Crystal says, so she chose medical assisting. Two years later–after graduating with a 4.0 and receiving the M.A. Smythe Award–she contemplated entering the workforce. “I had a job offer with an orthopedic office but I wanted to get my R.N., so I went straight to [nursing] school,” Crystal explains. After earning her nursing degree, Crystal went on to complete her CNOR certification and worked for four years as an operating room nurse at several area hospitals.

This experience was very useful to her when she decided to become director of the new surgical technology program at the Danville campus. Doing everything from setting up her lab and classroom to setting up externships at several hospitals throughout Southside Virginia and North Carolina, Crystal is seeing the fruition of her hard work in establishing the new program as the first fourteen graduates of the surgical technology program will receive their degrees at the graduation ceremony in June.

“I can’t believe it…I never thought it would come to this point,” she says with a big chuckle. “It’s actually awesome because [the students] did a really, really good job.” She continues, “we have good [externship] sites…they all love our students, I think they were really well prepared when they went out [for their externships].” All eight students who completed their externships during the winter term were offered jobs, and six more are wrapping up very successful clinical rotations during the spring term.

"I’m proud of myself, too, for getting it all together!"

Now, how many students can say that, 10 years after they enrolled at National College, they would have graduated with a 4.0, gone on to get a more advanced degree, worked in a demanding professional field, come back to their alma mater and start a new program, and shepherd new students through a demanding curriculum and into new jobs in the field? Crystal is justifiably proud of her students. “They’ve done well,” she says definitively, and goes on to admit “I’m proud of myself, too, for getting it all together!” Crystal, you have every right to be, and the National College family couldn’t be more proud of you, either.