GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KREX) – Class is full and in session for CMU’s nursing school on how to care for and save a life. The Moss School of Nursing started in 1986 and is seeing more applications than ever.

“In spite of a fatigued workforce, we are seeing young people and people with other careers wanting a second career in healthcare as a result of feeling a little bit powerless in the midst of it all and want to be able to do something to help,” CMU Nursing Program Director Lucy Graham, PHD shares.

When a nursing student gets their certification, there’s no complication to getting a job after graduation. As vaccine mandates cause some healthcare workers to quit, the increase in applications is helping to ease a nursing shortage that existed even before COVID-19.

“CMU nursing students are able to apply everything they learn in this program into the medical field,” Cora Dickey reports, “Once on the job, they’re able to provide medical needs that people like me and my friend here may have.”

As the pandemic continues, CMU nursing students gain hands-on experience in the classroom from contact tracing to working at community clinics. The practice prepares pupils for a post-grad career.

“We never have trouble placing our students into settings. Virtually, if a student who graduates from our nursing programs want to job they will have a job so it’s a wonderful feeling.” Graham continues, “There is a tremendous amount of need and I always tell my students: if you’re in this field in you’re bored, then that’s on you.”

What Nursing Program Director Dr. Graham means is there’s always a job in the medical field waiting for those who want to pursue it.

Advising is available for CMU’s nursing program to figure out whether you want a career in healthcare and if the program itself is a good fit. If students don’t get in when they apply the first time, CMU nursing doesn’t have a wait list so they can reapply the next semester.