While many may know Luca Artiga for her outgoing personality, the senior is known to many others as an aspiring nurse. Hoping to attend either Arizona State or San Diego State University, Artiga plans to be a labor and delivery nurse in the future and get her master’s degree.
As the president and founder of the Aspiring Nurses Club, Artiga has “always admired nurses” since she was young.
“[Nurses] always make your worst day better. You’re going to the hospital on your worst day –you’re not feeling good – and the nurses are always going to brighten your mood and comfort you,” Artiga said.
Artiga’s dream to become a nurse stems from witnessing her older cousin working at Planned Parenthood.
“That was the first introduction I got [to the career field], and I was like, wow, I’m actually really interested in women’s reproductive health, and that’s what introduced me to labor and delivery,” Artiga said.
Artiga’s mother, Toni Artiga, the club advisor and ceramics teacher, did share her concern when her daughter first started to show signs of interest in nursing.
“I wanted her to get more field experience, because sometimes you want to be a nurse [in theory], but you want to make sure that you can handle blood and gore. So, not that I’m trying to talk her out of it, I just want to make sure that she’s okay with making such an important decision so young, not knowing exactly what nurses do,” Toni Artiga said. “But she has done a lot of research, and she’s already gotten accepted to a nursing program.”
As a proud mom, Toni Artiga was not surprised that Luca was accepted into the program despite the small acceptance rate. She described her as independent, driven, motivated, smart, funny and as a “hard worker.”
“She wants to do well, and she’s hard on herself. That’s why she has such high grades,” Toni Artiga said. “She’s a good student.”
Her work ethic helps Artiga to recruit and talk to people about the club, given that she originally created it after talking to many people at the school. The club’s purpose is to spread knowledge about the nursing profession and to inspire people like her with similar passions.
“I realized that there are a lot of people who have the same drive as me and [want] to do the same things and become nurses, and I [wanted to] start a club for everybody to come together as a community,” Artiga said.
Before club meetings each week, Artiga plans everything in advance. She creates things like slideshows that go over salaries and other things the members may not know about nursing.
“There are a lot of different paths you can take to be a nurse. [Luca teaches club members that] they don’t have to gather themselves in a precise way [and encourages members to] make connections with other students who have similar interests and want to pursue the same career path,” Toni Artiga said.
The club not only helps its members; it also aids the community through volunteer events. For example, the club is currently planning an event in Oakmont, a nursing home in Torrance, to spend time helping patients in need. They held a similar event last year.
“[Last year] we did a rock painting class for early dementia patients in a specific wing in the nursing facility,” Artiga said.
Through her club and community service, Luca Artiga hopes to educate more people about nursing and the relief it brings to others.
“Being in the club exposes you to the aspect of nursing in which you’re helping out your community and you’re helping out others. It exemplifies and illustrates how, when you are going to be a nurse, you’re going to have to work with different kinds of people and you’re going to have to help them in different ways,” Artiga said. “[Community events] definitely helped me gain insight into how some fields of nursing operate versus other ones. And it definitely was a positive experience for me.”
