When she’s not taking dance lessons, working in the rec center, rooting for her beloved Red Sox or studying for what seems like her millionth anatomy test, Taylor Greene spends her days listening to Led Zeppelin and caring for her friends and family.
Born in the small town of Longmeadow, Mass., Greene grew up with a love of sports, dancing and music. When she moved to Colorado at the age of eight, she never abandoned her love for all three, even if her favorite sports teams drew the ire of her high school classmates.
When she was still a kid growing up in New England, Greene took up Irish dance, and competitively danced for 13 years. When she began college, she made the switch to a style of dance completely different from the curly-haired wigs of Irish dance to something more modern: hip-hop. Changing to a different type of dance was a bit difficult.
“Probably teaching my body how to not stand up straight all the time, and actually learning how to use my arms,” Greene said.
Between dancing and working at the gym, along with her years of lifeguarding and interest in diseases in the human body, it only seemed fitting Greene would pick nursing as her major.
“I’ve always had a pretty big interest in health sciences,” Greene said. “My grandmother was a nurse and when I was little I used to go into her cardiologist’s office and she would let me play with her stethoscope and blood pressure cuff, and dumb stuff like that.”
There was a period where she thought about a career in graphic design like that of her mother, but it was her desire to help others that ultimately propelled her into a nursing major at Colorado Mesa University.
What sealed the deal for her was the nursing program itself at CMU. Most major universities, particularly in Colorado, require six years to get a degree in nursing, while CMU still allows majors to graduate in four. Because Greene pays for her own tuition, finishing in four years saves a lot of time, stress and most importantly, money.
She also knows the area of Grand Junction very well. “I actually have family up in Grand Junction, so I’ve been coming here forever, so I’ve known about the campus basically since it was Mesa State,” Greene said.
After college, like most students, Greene is not quite sure what she will end up doing, or where she will end up going. She does hope someday to travel abroad, particularly to Latin America, and help patients from around the world. She also hopes one day to become a pediatric nurse and work with children.
“[Nursing] is not a stagnant occupation,” Greene said. “Even though I’m not even in nursing classes yet, I get excited about being able to specialize in certain things and how there’s always new research being made on how to treat cancers and kill off autoimmune diseases, plus it’s one of the only jobs that allows personal connections with the people you’re working with one on one.”
