Kendra Henriquez Answers a Call to Care

She worked steady jobs. She paid the bills. She showed up for her family. What she didn’t do was feel like she was living a life that fit.

Kendra is now back in college as a pre-nursing student at Aims Community College. She has chosen a demanding healthcare path, because it finally feels right for her.

A Helper, From the Beginning

Kendra is in her late 30s, married, raising a 10-year-old son and helping care for a 14-year-old stepdaughter. She is also balancing extended family responsibilities, supporting her grandmother and an elderly aunt after her grandfather’s death. This is paired with the demanding work of becoming a healthcare professional. “I’m just trying to balance caring for other people in my life with school.” 

Kendra describes herself simply as “a helper,” a trait her mother noticed early on. When a great-grandparent was dying, Kendra didn’t shy away from hospice care. She gravitated toward it. “I was on his deathbed,” she said. “And I was four.”

Even as a child, she wasn’t squeamish about medical settings. After surgery on her hand, she leaned in close to watch the procedure. The doctor had to move her head away in order to continue operating. Healthcare wasn’t a passing interest. It was a constant pull.

Over the years, Kendra worked in mortgage-related credit reporting and later as a secretary in the domestic violence division of a district attorney’s office. After becoming a parent, the hours became unmanageable and she shifted again, eventually spending seven years in damage recovery for a car rental company.

If she hadn’t come to Aims, Kendra knows where she’d be. “I’d still be at that job… just hating it,” she said. “It was a dead end. This is where I will retire and have nothing to show for it.”

Kendra’s return to school was prompted by her husband. He saw her unhappiness and refused to normalize it. He told her, “You’re miserable. Go back to school and build a life you want to wake up for.”

Learning That Finally Fits

Kendra’s first attempt at college came 20 years earlier, at a time when large classes, limited support and competing life demands made it hard to stay afloat. Coming to Aims, her experience was different almost immediately. Smaller class sizes and close faculty relationships created a culture of accountability and support. “If I email a professor, they know who I am,” she said. “I’m not just a number.” This personalization and these resources have made a significant impact.  

“I think my experience has been smoother this time. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older now or because of how the classes are set up, but it works with how I learn.”

She is proud of her grades, maintaining a 4.0 GPA. “I can do things I didn’t think I could do,” she said. This is an achievement she never imagined was possible at the start of her educational journey. “I’ve never been a math person. Math has always been my Achilles’ heel. This was the first time in my life I’ve ever gotten an A in a math class.”

Kendra is currently a pre-nursing major at Aims. Along the way, she gathered the prerequisites and earned a few certificates. The pathway at Aims provided her with hands-on exposure to a range of healthcare environments. The Nurse Aide certificate program taught her procedures designed to build consistency and confidence. Kendra followed that up with the Acute Care Nurse Aide Certificate. Those courses expanded on that foundation and focused on hospital care. 

Skills were practiced again and again, with instructors circulating through the lab to correct technique, reinforce expectations and build confidence. “It was very strict,” Kendra said. “But that was helpful, because healthcare isn’t going to be forgiving if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

The basics were already second nature when Kendra began her Nurse Aide clinical rotations at a long-term care facility.  She worked hands-on with nursing home residents, helping with daily care. Empathy, patience and respect are healthcare essentials that come from experience, not a textbook.

Acute Care classes pushed Kendra into a very different kind of learning. Hospital floors moved faster than anything she’d experienced before, with patients who didn’t follow a script and situations that changed by the minute. “It’s more like, ‘What do you see?’” she said. “Not everything is going to be step by step.”

Labs helped bridge that gap. Practicing on mannequins, hospital beds and real medical equipment gave her space to make mistakes, ask questions and repeat skills until they felt natural. By the time she stepped into clinical settings, the motions were already in her body, easing the anxiety that comes with doing things for the first time with real people.

Learning alongside her peers was essential to her success. Classmates rotated partners, talked each other through stressful scenarios and showed up for one another during long clinical days and state testing. Those shared moments built trust and a sense of teamwork that mirrors the reality of healthcare work.

Having instructors present in those environments mattered, too. Aims faculty were there to coach, reassure and offer feedback. They also talked openly about the emotional weight of the medical field and the importance of protecting oneself from burnout. “They’re honest about how stressful nursing can be,” Kendra said. “And they talk about taking care of yourself, too.”

The Road Ahead 

Career-wise, Kendra aspires to work in psychiatric nursing. Her interest comes from personal experience, including seeing family members struggle with mental health challenges. 

The challenge of this is what partly draws Kendra into this area of healthcare. “It is definitely a hard specialty,” she said, “but it’s something I want to explore.”

Her next step is to take the HESI (Health Education Systems, Inc.) exam, a standardized test required for admission to nursing programs. After that, Kendra will begin the nursing school application process for entry into the Nursing program. 

At Aims, Kendra found an environment where growth felt possible, challenges felt manageable and her long-term goals began to feel within reach.

“Aims has given me back a spark. It’s helped me reach where I’m actually supposed to be.”

When she talks to others who are hesitant to return to school, her advice is direct: “If it’s more than a passing thought, start now.” Because years from now, you’ll still be standing at the beginning unless you take the first step. “That spark doesn’t go away,” Kendra said, “so you might as well follow it.”