Bright Blue Scrubs: Going Back to School

Abstract

This case tracks a woman named Jodi as she dreams of going back to school in her early 30s to become a nurse. Jodi had put off higher education for 15 years after she became pregnant with her son as a junior in high school. But now, with her son only a few years away from leaving the house for college himself, Jodi wants to improve both her future and the $30,000 income she currently earns as an administrative assistant at a small health clinic. Jodi calls her friend Tameka, a cashier at a local supermarket who had recently gone back to school to become a pharmacist. Tameka suggests that Jodi meet with a college adviser to learn more about her options.This case is best used in a non-MBA course on financial literacy, or in other educational settings wherein learners are exploring resilience, especially navigating returning to the educational system as an adult. Excerpt UVA-F-1912 Feb. 6, 2020 Bright Blue Scrubs: Going Back to School Introduction All night, Jodi had trouble sleeping—her thoughts had been plagued by an all-too-familiar feeling, and when she looked at the calendar, she knew exactly why: tomorrow would mark the three-year anniversary of her mother's passing. She remembered how she had given up her second job to stay home and care for her mother during her last days, but every year, Jodi's most persistent memory was the promise she had made to her dying mother—that she would go back to school and finally fulfill her dream of being a nurse. Jodi's mother had been a hardworking nurse and single mom who tried to provide the best for her daughter, but Jodi had felt she'd been a disappointment to her mother ever since she'd gotten pregnant at 16, in her senior year of high school. Jodi had always wanted to be a nurse, and had been a star student who loved biology and chemistry, but once she had gotten pregnant, she'd had to make different life plans, which included getting a full-time job to support her son, Andre. Her plans to go to college had been on hold for more than a decade while she worked and took care of her son, and as each year passed, returning to school and becoming a nurse began to seem more impossible to Jodi. . . .