Alumni Profiles
Jane Beck
Caring for people leads accounting grad to new career as nurse
It took a career change to a new field for Jane Beck to realize what she truly loved to do. Beck, who holds an accounting degree from Spring Arbor College, and has worked in the accounting field. In 2001, a job change led her to do home care for the Jackson County Department on Aging, and she found what she had been missing.
“She had a bachelor’s degree in accounting, but said she didn’t like working in the back room with numbers all day and asked if I would give her a chance,” said Betty Wozniak, home care supervisor for the Jackson County Department on Aging and a registered nurse.
While Wozniak said the agency normally wouldn’t hire someone with Beck’s limited experience, they gave her a try, giving her training and sending her out with another worker to shadow before she went out on her own. Important qualities for caregivers and healthcare providers working with the elderly includes being caring, compassionate, able to maximize abilities clients do have, and have a good sense of humor. Beck embodied those qualities, so her supervisor suggested she think about taking classes at JCC in nursing.
“She had a spark of interest and a drive, and I kept telling her to give a try, she might enjoy it,” Wozniak said.
“I really loved it, taking care of people,” Beck said. “That’s when I started taking classes again.”
Beck started slowly taking prerequisite courses in the licensed practical nurse program at JCC. An instructor recognized her potential and suggested she enroll in the registered nurse program.
“It wasn’t something I had really thought about before, only maybe in the back of my mind,” Beck said. She completed JCC’s associate degree in nursing program and graduated in May, and is waiting to take her boards to become a licensed RN. She would like to work for the Jackson County Medical Care Facility after she is licensed, and she wants to continue to work with the Department on Aging, caring for some clients that she has had since she started. “I don’t want to give them up!”
Going back to school as an adult took effort and the support of her family, but it was definitely worthwhile. “I’d tell anyone thinking about going back to College that it’s a good idea.
