{"id":76207,"date":"2013-04-18T08:25:25","date_gmt":"2013-04-18T12:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=76207"},"modified":"2023-06-27T13:13:10","modified_gmt":"2023-06-27T17:13:10","slug":"class-of-2013-kylie-angell-future-registered-nurse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2013\/04\/class-of-2013-kylie-angell-future-registered-nurse\/","title":{"rendered":"Class of 2013: Kylie Angell, Future Registered Nurse"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is part of a series featuring some of this year\u2019s outstanding graduating students, nominated by their academic school or college or another University program in which they participated. Check for additional profiles of students in the Class of 2013<\/a> on UConn Today from now through Commencement.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Kylie<\/a>
Kylie Angell ’13 (NUR). (Ariel Dowski ’14 (CLAS)\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Coming out of high school, Kylie Angell \u201913 (NUR) had the long-held impression that math and science were not among her strengths. And when she took her first chemistry courses at UConn, they indeed proved to be far from easy. But for Angell, they presented exactly the sort of challenge that triggered her interest. Initially a history major, she transferred to the School of Nursing in time for her junior year \u2013 and has wholeheartedly taken on many more challenges since.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just kind of looked past what the expectations were for me and made my own path,\u201d says the 23-year-old from Trumbull, Conn.<\/p>\n

Wise beyond her years, Angell has persevered through far more than difficult college coursework. In hospital emergency departments, children\u2019s medical centers, and community clinics during her years as a nursing student, Angell has done everything from comforting infant victims of shaken baby syndrome who are suffering from hemorrhage and brain damage to serving in trauma situations and assisting with post-mortem patient care.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get home, it makes your life a lot more valuable, and it makes you that much more set on influencing other people\u2019s lives in positive ways while they\u2019re on this planet,\u201d Angell says. \u201cI feel like it\u2019s my duty to make everyone else\u2019s life better for as long as I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

One patient Angell encountered was living with a frightening degenerative illness that has no known cure. After fulfilling her necessary nursing duties with the patient, she could not shake the sense that he and his wife were holding something back.<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled up a chair, sat down, and said, \u2018Would you like to talk about anything? I can help you out.\u2019\u201d With both the patient and his wife suddenly in tears, Angell encouraged them to open up about their fears and emotional struggles with the disease. \u201cThey talked about how scary it was, how expensive it was, how they had to travel to another hospital out of state to get care, and how their son was affected by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deeply moved by the experience, Angell immediately went about fundraising for a foundation dedicated to research on the disease. \u201cI encounter a lot of instances where I can have a small impact on someone\u2019s life, even if it\u2019s being able to provide them with a little bit of TLC \u2013 give them crackers, raise the bed up, and listen to their story,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Speaking up<\/b><\/p>\n

As required by UConn\u2019s nursing program, Angell has worked and interned in various medical facilities at least 18 hours a week each semester, but also does so during her summers, at times working up to 12\u00bd hours at a stretch without a break.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is really intense,\u201d she says. \u201cYou have to use your judgment. And if you think that something is wrong, you have to say something, speak up. If you think that you\u2019ve made a mistake, you have to have accountability for it. It\u2019s a lot of responsibility \u2013 these are people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

But speaking up is not just something Angell does on the job. <\/b>President of the School of Nursing\u2019s Class of 2013 and a recent recipient of the Spirer\/Dueker Student Life Humanitarian Achievement and the UConn Nursing Outstanding Woman Scholar awards, Angell has also used her time at UConn to find her voice as a student activist and leader.<\/p>\n

In 2011, she co-founded the student organization Revolution Against Rape, which strives to raise awareness about sexual assault on college campuses and end the rape culture through reform, education, and activism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really enlightening, but also bittersweet,\u201d she says. \u201cYou see there are so many people willing to be involved with this cause, but then you find out why they\u2019re involved. And you realize that we all have this connection; that\u2019s why we\u2019re fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n

With hopes of landing a position as a registered nurse come graduation, Angell has her sights ultimately set on obtaining a Ph.D. in nursing with a concentration in health policy. At a recent student policy summit with the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses held in Washington, D.C., Angell met with the legislative aides of Connecticut senators to advocate for nursing research.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really inspired me, because it taught me that I can use my nursing degree to work in government one day and to be an advocate for nursing,\u201d she says. \u201cI want people going into nursing to realize how important it is to get involved \u2013 whether it\u2019s in student government at the university level, an organization in a hospital, or a national nursing association. It\u2019s really important for nurses to speak up, because we have very little representation on a national level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Angell has come a long way. \u201cIt definitely surprises me that I\u2019m a nursing major sometimes \u2013 but in a very, very good way,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

And yet even with her many accomplishments, she is genuinely humble, going about her day-to-day life as a nursing student with a knack for keeping things in perspective. \u201cI think it\u2019s always been ingrained in me to try my best,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t have to be perfect, and I don\u2019t have to be the<\/i> best, but I have to try my<\/i> best. Looking at all of my professors and how accomplished they are just gives me a lot of motivation. \u2026 The School of Nursing has been my home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kylie Angell ’13 (NUR) hopes ultimately to study health policy, earn a Ph.D., and become an advocate for nursing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":76216,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2234],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[49],"class_list":["post-76207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-university-life"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 03:55:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76207"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76721,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76207\/revisions\/76721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/76216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76207"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=76207"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=76207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}