Craig Philhower:
CLASS OF 1992
McArthur High SchoolClass of 1992
Hollywood, FL
Broward Community College - South CampusClass of 1999
Pembroke pines, FL
Apollo Middle SchoolClass of 1988
Hollywood, FL
Saint Stephen SchoolClass of 1988
Miramar, FL
Orange - Brook Elementary SchoolClass of 1985
Hollywood, FL
Craig's Story
Life
Graduated Barry University in 2002 with my BS in Nursing. Worked in Miami for a bit, and now I'm all over the place: Hawaii, Jacksonville, and beyond. I specialize in Emergency nursing, preferably adult, but I have been know to work with the kiddies. I'm still planning on grad school, but in a few years. Right now, I am enjoying my freedom to travel to new places, meet cool people, broaden my horizons, and make a little coin. ;-)
School
High school. I liked it, mostly. I was invisible, except to the few people that were my friends. After the misery that was my middle school experience, high school was fabulous. People I remember most were my German class friends, expecially Mark Wegman, Oneill McCall. Mrs. O'Rourke was my all time favorite teacher, along with Mrs. Grimm (Sciences). You'll forgive me if I don't name more names, but I don't have my yearbook at hand. Suffice to say, high school was an experience, however, it is one that is best left in the past.
College
Ah college... I lived vicariously thru my party hearty friends that attended Florida. My college career was much shorter. I enrolled at BCC-South right out of high school, where I majored in 'Academic Probation'. I would take courses, drop them and/or fail them by not showing up. I did this for two years, acquiring a grand total of TWELVE credits. I then dropped out altogether and decided I'd return there when the time was right. Fast forward about 6 years, when I lose BOTH jobs I had (circa 1998) and I decide to further indebt myself to large corporations by becoming a student again and taking out loans. Thanks to my previous ill-planned forays into the academic world, I had ZERO margin for error. F...Expand for more
ail a course or two, and I would be delaying my progress by a year at a time.. So, I did what I had to to... I went from a 0.8 GPA to Dean's List in 1 semester, got off academic probation in 2 sememsters, and was out of BCC in 4 semesters to Barry University, to finish my bachelors degree in Nursing. Barry went alot smoother, except for my junior year, which lasted a mere FIFTEEN weeks (instead of the usual 8 months). Hey, I wanted to graduate and make some dough! When all was said and done, I walked across the Knight Center stage in May 2002 with a bachelors degree in nursing. w00t!
Workplace
I finally ditched the restaurant business in 2000, after 8 dedicated years of service/liver damage. I miss the fun times and most of the people, but I do NOT miss the cigarette smoke, lousy pay, drunken bastids, sore feet and all the parking tickets I got while working in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.
You name the major bistro chain, I worked there: Bennigans, Applebees, Fridays, Olive Garden, Carrabbas and the Ale House. I finished my career (if you could call it that) at Dan Marino's Town Tavern, having outlasted every employee and manager that worked there.
Nursing was much more stable. I was hired out of school by Baptist Health South Florida as a graduate RN. I then interviewed for two positions: ICU and Emergency. The ICU interview was adversarial, to say the least, but the Emergency interview was open and welcoming. I knew I had the job in the first thirty seconds. I worked there and enjoyed it. I learned a tremendous amount and I still am very thankful for working in such a great place.
I had the opportunity to start travel nursing in March 05. I took it and I never looked back.
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