Born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, Sierra Smith is no stranger to challenges. In her life, she’s undergone 20 brain surgeries. Her medical condition caused her to struggle in school, and she even had to miss a month of school each year of high school. While her academic journey has not been a predictable one, she is now earning her bachelor’s degree from The University of Alabama completely online in Human Development and Family Studies with a concentration in Child Life.
After finishing high school, Sierra enrolled in a local technical school in northeast Pennsylvania to study veterinary technology. Sierra loves animals and wanted to spend her career helping them, but her hydrocephalus challenged that plan.
“Because of my hydrocephalus, I’m shunted, which means I have a tubing system that helps drain excess fluid off my brain, which it can’t do naturally like it does for everyone else. And often, this tubing system fails. When my shunt fails, I end up having a really bad lack of focus. My grades suffer because I can’t focus on things and I have trouble understanding material,” Sierra explained.
Only two semesters away from finishing that program, she had to have brain surgery yet again. She had planned to return after some time off, but because of the complications from surgery, it was just too difficult. “My medical leave ended up being longer and longer, and I just never went back,” she recalled.
These complications weren’t the end of Sierra’s story, but the beginning of an exciting new chapter. “Over time and in talking to a few people, I realized that while I love animals, I’m not meant to work with them in that capacity. Around that time, a mentor from my high school, Mary Jo Bayer — who works with students who have disabilities as a transition coordinator — introduced me to the role of child life specialists.”
Sierra had interacted with these heroes regularly during her time in the hospital as a child. “I knew there were people who brought games and activities to organize fun for the patients, but I’d never realized it was a career path. For me, they had been the ones who made me feel like I could get through it. In junior high, I spent nearly an entire summer in the hospital. My parents were there with me the whole time, of course, but it was just nice to have somebody else looking out for my fun and making sure I was doing OK,” she recalled.
After that conversation with her mentor, Sierra began looking into what was necessary to put her on the path to a career in child life.
“By then, I was a bit older, in my mid-twenties, and I just wasn’t feeling the on-campus life. So I researched and found only two colleges that offered a bachelor’s degree online that would help me. And when comparing the two schools, it was almost a no-brainer that Alabama was the right choice for me. It just fit – the fact that I could take classes when I wanted to, do the coursework when I could, and still have the freedom to volunteer and do things with my family when I wanted to. I have really liked that flexibility.”
Sierra is entering her senior year at Alabama and said that her coursework has only gotten more interesting the more she has progressed in the program. “As I’ve gotten into my major and minor, the classes have just been fascinating to me. Last fall I took a class on medical terminology, and for someone who’s been in and out of the hospital as much as I have been, that was a really cool class.”
“My experience has been great. I didn’t really know how the online experience was going to go because I’m used to face-to-face interactions with my teachers and peers. Last semester, I had a group project online with two other girls, and it ended up being an amazing experience. And there have been days where I’m having some kind of flare-up due to my disability, and I just need to take the day. With the online format, having the freedom to do that has definitely been beneficial.”
Sierra’s experiences as a pediatric patient have borne in her a passion for child life and the profound positive impact that child life specialists can make for children and their families. She looks forward to completing the program and beginning her career.
“It’s exciting to start thinking about working in a hospital that has the same feeling about children that I do, seeing the value that they bring to society. I’m really excited about what the possibilities are, and I feel like once I have my degree, the possibilities are truly endless.”
Published: August 30th, 2020