Southwestern Magazine | Spring 2020

out college campuses. From her cousin’s house in a Dallas suburb, Del Real took an Amtrak train to start on her college tour. The Office of Admission arranged for a student to pick Del Real up from the station on a Wednesday night. Her tour started with a concert in the Cove, and she stayed in the quad with members of Sigma Phi Lambda, a Christian sorority. The next morning, she attended a biology class taught by Ben Pierce, where she says she felt welcome and included. After her visit, Del Real knew she wanted to go to Southwestern. After being accepted, she received a scholarship for first- generation students from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Del Real then packed up to go to Georgetown, even though it was far from her home and family. During her first-year seminar (FYS), called Latinos: One or Many Cultures, Del Real quickly found a community of her own. “To no surprise, there were a lot of Latinos in this FYS,” Del Real remarks. “That class in itself helped me find a niche of people who looked like me, who had come from similar backgrounds, and who I knew would share my college experiences.” Del Real quickly became involved in extracurriculars. She participated in Student Foundation for all four years and was an officer of Sigma Phi Lambda. In her sophomore year, she restarted Colleges against Cancer, an advocacy and education program aligned with the American Cancer Society. “I’ve always had—I don’t know why—a deep love of cancer,” says Del Real. “It’s a love–hate relationship: I hate cancer, but I love learning about it.” It was this interest that made Del Real want to be a doctor, so she majored in biology. But between her sophomore and junior years, she interned at a medical school in New Jersey and discovered doctors didn’t get enough of the patient interaction she found fulfilling, so after talking to Traci Giuliano, professor of psychology, Del Real withdrew her applications frommedical school and knew nursing would be a better fit. Del Real graduated with her biology degree but she knew she would need a nursing degree as well. That summer, she worked as a biochemist for Heinz Tomato Ketchup. After work, she would go straight to a nearby junior college to take night classes to earn the prerequisites she needed for nursing school. Two years after graduating from Southwestern, Del Real started an accelerated nursing program at California State University Fresno. She earned her second bachelor’s degree within a year and a half, graduating with a master’s degree in nursing in 2015. “If I’d gone somewhere else but Southwestern, maybe I’d be a doctor, and I’d hate my life,” Del Real reflects. She has worked for over three years as a registered nurse at Valley Children’s Hospital in Madera County. The hospital is the only children’s hospital in a three-hour radius, and many of Del Real’s patients are low-income and uninsured. She works primarily in the oncology department. “My love–hate [relationship] with cancer continues,” she says. Even though Del Real lives far from Texas, she has kept up with what’s happening at Southwestern. She stays in touch with friends 22 SOUTHWESTERN " From the conversations that I ’ve had with Janet so far, I could tell that she was and is definitely very ambitious. She knew what she wanted to do, and I definitely feel the same way. "