Senior Olivia Gianni has big goals for the future: a high school diploma, college degree, and career as a nurse. But for now, she is focusing on getting good grades and staying on top of her work to achieve her goals. 

She found the inspiration for her future career when she was ten years old and in the hospital with Pneumonia.

Olivia was inspired at the hospital by all her “amazing nurses” who took care of her when she was ill. At first she wanted to be a surgeon, but as she got older she says she realized the nurses were her superheroes. She thinks doctors and surgeons are superheroes too, but the nurses made her decide she wants to be one of them.

She loves to help people and to see people succeed and be the “best version of themselves.” This encourages her to get the knowledge she needs to succeed in order to help others.

Olivia first started to learn to care for others as a babysitter for newborn to seven years olds when she was just 11 years old. She says before she started babysitting, she went through the babysitter course for the hospital so she would be CPR and First Aid certified so the child she was watching would be in what she calls “good protective care”.

This summer, Olivia got to see if this career was really for her. She did a Med Quest class at Rutland Hospital. “We learned a lot from spinal taps to doing stitches,” Olivia says. She enjoyed learning various different medical processes throughout her class. This made her more excited to become a nurse.  

Olivia’s biggest supporters outside of school are the people with whom she surrounds herself to help achieve her goals. These include: her parents, friends and family. They keep her chugging along to do her best so she can achieve all her goals and dreams.

After high school, she plans to go to college out of state. Olivia says she either wants to go to college in Connecticut or Massachusetts so she can be “closer to her family”.

However, for now it’s all forward momentum and hard work for Olivia as she seeks more knowledge and information to become a nurse.