April 22, 2014

Name: Eric Williams

Class Year: Pre-junior

Majors/Minors: Nursing

After I graduate from Drexel I will probably be: An Emergency Department or critical care nurse

Favorite place to eat on campus: I’m a big fan of pizza so I’m going to say Ed’s

I can’t live without: Outdoors stuff like hiking, biking, kayaking, skiing, etc. keeps me sane

My stress buster: Going to the gym whenever I hit a mental wall always wakes me up and clears my mind.

My favorite thing about Philly: Going to explore new parts of the city or restaurants that I haven’t been to before

My favorite professor: Professor Barrett because it was so easy to see that she truly cared about us succeeding as students. I vividly remember her emailing us the night before our first exam wishing us good luck and then seeing how nervous she was for us the next day, wanting us all to do well.

The best advice I could give incoming students: Use freshman year as a time to find the balance between academics, social life, and other interests. As you move along and classes become more difficult, it’s important to have a feel for how much you can bite off and devote to different aspects of your life.

You know you’re a Nursing major when: You own an all-white pair of sneakers (mandatory for clinicals). But seriously, who decided white would be a good color to wear in a hospital?

If I could do anything, I would: Try to live and work in a different country for a year or two, maybe longer if I like it; preferably one that’s warm and has nice beaches

If I could trade lives with another person for a day it would be: Someone in a worse-off situation than my current life. Sometimes a quick dose of perspective is all you need to make you appreciate all that you do have, and not what you don’t.

Something most people don’t know about me: My mom started rowing two years ago and is currently in the tryout process for the US Paralympic Rowing Team. She’s the one who convinced me to try and walk onto Drexel’s rowing team this year, regardless of the fact that I had never rowed before the preseason.

My greatest achievement at Drexel so far: Being the only nursing major on the crew team. Both activities are huge time commitments and many days there are scheduling conflicts to work through, but I’ve stuck through it this far and I plan on continuing both.

You’ll never see me: Take a short-cut. Hunter S. Thompson once said, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

When no one is around, I: Walk around the house in boxers and sing in the shower. Go ahead and judge me.

My biggest pet peeve: Judging without knowledge. You never fully know what someone else is going through and to judge without walking a mile in their shoes is discourteous.

If I could teach a class in any subject I would teach: Some sort of history class (on the Cold War era preferably). I’ve always found that time period really interesting to learn about.

The hardest class I’ve taken at Drexel is: Probably Pharmacology I or II. Some people grasp the material easily; some people have to really work for it. Regardless of which type, both  have to memorize large amounts of information in a short amount of time, and be able to pull that information not only for finals, but for the HESI’s, clinicals, the NCLEX licensing test, and of course after we graduate and are working as nurses.

One thing that always cheers me up: Friends (real life ones and the television show). Neither have let me down yet.

Three words I would use to describe my major: Empowering, genuine, sleepy

The quote I live by: A few that have stuck with me are, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door,” and “No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible” by Milton Burley and George Burns respectively.