Formerly a Licensed Practical Nurse and Registered Nurse, Julia Pinto found herself stagnant in her nursing career. As a self-described “life-long learner,” Julia reached for more and navigated her way back to Goodwin University. “I chose Goodwin because historically the school has well exceeded my expectations,” she explained. “I am a single mom who has balanced working two to three jobs at a time while getting my undergraduate and graduate degrees at Goodwin. The school has served me as a mom, a student, and as a professional working nurse. I wanted [my MSN] to be able to be an educator and pursue leadership roles…,” she explained. “I wanted my master’s behind me to break through barriers.” And that’s exactly what Julia did when she graduated from Goodwin University’s MSN program in August of 2019.

Now working full-time as a Clinical Case Manager, Julia is responsible for market management, maintaining relationships with hospital referral sources, and she is also a Lead Field Contact for her company’s value based care relationships— focusing on true quality of care rather than quantity of patients seen. Additionally, Julia screens patients for their individual nursing needs, homecare needs, and/or hospice criteria, identifying clinical essentials to be administered. A hard-working student turned valuable employee, Julia also supervises part-time in a skilled nursing facility.

At first apprehensive to take her MSN classes fully-online, Julia noted that the MSN program’s cohort-model was small, and that students were able to “connect and form relationships” through their online classroom experience, emails, and even through encouraging group texts. According to Julia, “there were people with a variety of nursing backgrounds,” which helped to gain multiple perspectives of those in the field.

The MSN faculty was described as “supportive [and] motivating [while] having high expectations” of their students. “Goodwin’s been very good to me,” Julia radiated with gratitude. As a busy mom, she found that Goodwin was “beyond flexible and supportive.” For her end-of-the year capstone project, Julia concentrated on value-based care and furthered her understanding of those with chronic illnesses. This same focus now ties into her current work as she is now able to “bring more value to the table” and is “considered a leader and expert in her field.”

Setting the standard for student success in her family, Julia hopes that her son, Carter, will follow in her footsteps on the path to higher education. “Carter finds great value in seeing me succeed” she stated. “He knows how hard I have worked. We would take family time to celebrate and show him how important it is to keep plugging along towards your goals. My goal is to hopefully pass my love and dedication for education to my son. I know that education breaks down barriers and that he too will find great reward in education over his lifetime.”

Now, with her MSN degree behind her, Julia certainly has a lot to look forward to. Not only breaking barriers, Julia breaks the mold when it comes to drive, dedication, and demanding better for her future.

Interested in learning more? Visit www.goodwin.edu/MSN