Tonya Hensley

My name is Tonya Hensley and was the recipient for CSUS Razi Scholar for Outstanding Achievement in which I was rewarded with a $15,000 scholarship. I am a mother to four beautiful children and a full-time nursing student at CSUS. My passion for helping others has led me to the profession of nursing, and in a few short months I will be graduating with my BSN. I have always known I wanted to work with mothers and babies, so after finishing my fourth semester of nursing school, I volunteered over 100 in postpartum at my hospital of choice during the summer of 2022. Although I absolutely loved working as a postpartum nurse, I wanted to volunteer more time in a different unit. My third baby was a NICU baby and spent a grueling 3 months in the NICU, so NICU was another unit I had a strong desire to work in. After devoting another 100 hours of my time to NICU, I knew right away that I was meant to be a NICU nurse. Here I am now, entering my 6th and final semester of nursing school. I was assigned to the hospital that I wanted to be at as well as the unit of my choice, NICU>