My name is Natalie Winner, I am a Junior here at Galway and I started going to BOCES for Health Occupation this year. Ever since I was in middle school I heard about BOCES and I knew that I wanted to have a career that would require me experience in a BOCES program. I was deciding between becoming a lawyer and an Obstetric Sonographer. An Obstetric Sonographer is the person who takes pictures of pregnant women and their babies’ heartbeats.

I have always loved kids, I babysit for a hobby because I love taking care of people and kids too. I always knew that I was going to be more interested in a career related to that. I hear about all the good parts of the job, but I know there are bad parts too, so that’s kind of scary, but there’s always a possibility of something bad happening at your job, not just in the healthcare field. I am the first person in my family to work in the health field so I’m a little nervous because there are a lot of expectations for me doing this and being successful.

It has been a full month since school started and we’ve already become very hands-on in the lab, which is something I really enjoy because I’m the type of person that likes to be active and ready to go. This is a very serious class. We are handling real people and I’m sure that when we go to clinical for the first time in November that I will be nervous and maybe forget, but the instructors stay with us so we don’t have to be alone for our first time.

We learned recently how to put restraints on agitated or unstable people if they become too forgetful and hurt themselves or others. Restraints are a last resort, but knowing how to apply them is a good skill to have.

My favorite part about the program so far is that we get to do the skills we learn on each other by demonstrating and getting demonstrations on us as well. This lets us experience how to actually practice on a real person and not just a dummy. We were hands on even the first week, making beds, and we were tested for bed making. In my opinion, making an occupied bed with a partner is easier, but making an unoccupied bed by yourself lets you learn the skills and understand what you’re doing and what you have to work on.

It has been really fun so far, even our lecture days aren’t half bad because we do Kahoots, group activities, and notes, so our brains are still working and not just listening to my teacher Mrs. Altenburger talk to the class the whole time. If I had to choose between Galway and BOCES personally I wouldn’t because I get different things from each school, and I love that. We really do lots of hands on activities which again gives us more of a work ethic. Now I’m only two months in so there’s not a lot of stuff we do yet, but maybe at the end of the year I’ll write another article!