Even though his first job was at a hospital, Justin Daniel admits being a valet at Stony Brook Hospital in New York was little more than putting money in his pocket, but his drive to enter the medical field never waned.
He knew that he had to make a change and it hit him when he returned from a family trip and his older cousin told him “This is your moment and you can choose to stay where you are or define your life and move forward.”
Daniel describes that feeling as “a fire burning within, but it was a fire I was going to control or let it consume me. I controlled it and got to the point I am today.”
After completing the practical nursing program at Prism Career Institute in Philadelphia, Daniel landed a job in the Penn Medicine Network, working as a PN at Pennsylvania Hospital within the Orthopedic Department.
“The one aspect that best prepared me for my current position was the wide variety of clinical experience I gained from the many locations that were given to us,” said Daniel. “By letting students explore everything within our scope of practice, I was not too worried about the position I was taking on.”
There is no doubt that Daniel was facing a crossroads in his life when he decided to attend Prism Career Institute in Philadelphia. He left behind family and friends and the familiarity of New York to chase his dream.
“I came to a crossroads in my life,” he said. “It was to stay where I was or to move on. I chose to move on regardless of the obstacles I was going to have to face. The motivation from oneself is truly one of the only things that will get people to move from the past and aim for the future.”
Daniel cites Amos Odeleye, Prism’s assistant director of nursing as having a great impact on his educational experience.
“He inspired me from the very first days of teaching pharmacology to the moment I graduated that we should never limit ourselves to what is in front of us,” he said. “There is always time to learn. It really hit me at the moment I graduated, and I realized all those jokes that Mr. Amos had told us throughout our curriculum, were all things we would see in the real world. He knew what we were all getting ourselves into and he was proud to call each one of us a future nurse. You can say he had a kind and open heart to all things nursing and that is how I wanted to be in the future.”
With a passion for helping others, Daniel is a tireless volunteer. He helped in rebuilding his church that was hit by Hurricane Sandy and participates in “midnight runs” with his friends to feed the homeless New York City.
“My role in my community is not to gain fame or recognition, it is to simply help where needed,” he said.
Success, according to Daniel, is the will to move forward past your failures and create something valuable from it.
“Every failure is a lesson in life,” he said. “If I did not hit the bottom there would be no room for me to bounce back. When you have an amazing support system you can do anything but it will always be the raw willpower from within that helps us move forward.”
Daniel said his experience at Prism is one that he won’t forget.
“The curriculum was fast paced and intense,” he said. “The class was one that was outspoken and the biggest challenge was becoming class president and being told to lead a class of such outspoken individuals. But we all learn through experience and that helped me get to the position I am in now.”
His first day at school was the most difficult day, according to Daniel, because he realized he was leaving most of his friends and family in New York and entering the next stage of his life. He calls finishing that day the biggest step toward his success.
To anyone considering a Prism education, Daniel has this advice.
“Finish it, you will feel better about yourself. There is nothing easy about anything in life. This school will push you, but the staff and your classmates will help push you forward,” he added. “If you want to see a definition of success, it is my class. I was in a class full of superheroes, those that had children and those who worked.”