You Can Do This: PN student Kara Downer is Only Going Up

For Kara Downer, returning to school wasn’t just about earning a diploma. It was about rewriting a story she had told herself for years.

A mother to two teenagers and currently a student in Bow Valley College’s Practical Nurse Diploma, Kara spent much of her adult life believing she “wasn’t good at school.” That belief shaped her career choices and kept her stuck in jobs she describes as safe, but limiting.

“I did a lot of negative self-talk,” Kara shares. “I told myself I couldn’t do math. I told myself I wasn’t smart.”

Despite that, she was always drawn to professions that help people. She tried other careers, including work outside healthcare, but nothing felt quite right. Eventually, she enrolled in the Health Care Aide Certificate at Bow Valley College.

“I didn’t have what I needed yet for nursing,” she explains. “The Health Care Aide program felt like a substitute. But looking back, I’m really glad I took that step first.”

Working in healthcare confirmed what she already suspected: she wanted even more responsibility, even more learning, and more room to grow.

That realization brought her into upgrading courses at Bow Valley College. Math, which she had always feared, became the biggest surprise.

“I hadn’t been in high school for 30 years,” Kara emphasizes. “Math was something I thought I could never do. And then I turned out to be really good at it.”

Step by step, she worked her way through math, eventually tutoring other students and earning good grades. That success didn’t just help her academically; it changed how she saw herself.

“That mindset shift changed everything,” she says. “It stopped being ‘can I do this?’ and became ‘I will.’”

Now in the Practical Nurse Diploma, Kara is balancing school, work, and parenting. She still works as a health care aide, but her days look much different. On the job, she’s learning directly from nurses, many of them Bow Valley College graduates. They invite her to observe medication administration, injections, and clinical decision-making within her scope.

“That hands-on learning is huge,” she says. “I love seeing how everything connects.”

What ultimately draws Kara to nursing is the critical thinking and variety it offers. While she values the patient connection in her work as a health care aide, she wants the broader scope and decision-making that nursing brings.

“The job (health care aide) is important, but nursing opens up so many more possibilities,” she explains.

And those possibilities excite her. She’s already explored mental health and geriatrics through work, and she’s curious about surgery, labour and delivery, and even roles outside traditional hospital settings.

“It’s opportunity,” she says simply. “That’s what nursing gives you.”

For Kara, the journey hasn’t been quick or easy and she’s honest about that. But she’s also clear about what made the difference: using resources at the college, asking for help, taking courses at her own pace, and letting go of the idea that failing once means you can’t succeed later.

Her advice to anyone stuck in a dead-end job or afraid they’re “not school material”?

“Just do it,” she says. “Get started. If you fail something, do it again. Take your time. You can do this.”

Nursing isn’t just a career change for Kara; it’s proof that even doors that felt permanently closed can be opened.

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