From the Front Lines to the Line at Graduation: Professional Nursing Alumna Carves Her Path


Fresh out of high school Shannon Bagardo worked while taking general courses at her local community college. At that time, she remembers feeling college was not for her. She wasn’t passionate about what she was doing and didn’t quite know where to turn. “I didn’t have the right mind-set for college at the time,” she says. In 2007, knowing she needed a change of pace, she found an opportunity that would change her life and help her to uncover her true purpose. “When the opportunity to join the United States Air Force presented itself, I enlisted—and it was one of the best decisions of my life,” she says.