An innocent mistake as a child guaranteed that third-year student Natalie would be drawn irresistibly to the profession of nursing.

“When I was eight years old I accidently gave my little cousin a cashew,” she recalls. “I was too young to know you are not supposed to give small children nuts and my cousin suffered a severe anaphylactic reaction.”

Watching the doctors and nurses treating her cousin in the early hours of the morning had a profound impact on Natalie and ultimately led to her decision to enrol in a Bachelor of Nursing at Notre Dame’s Darlinghurst campus.

“It was first time I’d been in a hospital and I watched all of these people running around at 3am doing their jobs. It was awesome,” she recalls.

Her choice of Notre Dame was heavily influenced by the university’s excellent reputation for Nursing and her own positive experience at Open Day.

“When I came here for Open Day, Notre Dame struck me as a lovely, close knit community and far more welcoming than the other universities that I’d visited,” she says. “It was also the type of place where I felt I could make good friends.

Although she found the three-year Bachelor of Nursing to be demanding, Natalie says the combination of classroom learning and practical experience is the ideal preparation for a career in nursing.

“Nursing can be academically challenging at times and it is a very intense,” she says. “But the course also helps to build up your stamina. I also think we are very lucky to have such an amazing Dean to support us – she knows everything.”

Given her childhood experiences it isn’t surprising that Natalie is tossing up between paedriatrics and emergency as her chosen specialty: “I haven’t quite decided.”