Arisleyda Hernandez

My name is Arisleyda Jimenez, I am from the Dominican Republic. I immigrated to the USA when I was 21 years old, and lived in the state of Virginia for a while with my husband. My husband found a better paying job in Indiana and we relocated. The first couple of months were very difficult for us. One day while at work someone broke into our home and robbed us, they took everything. Just a few months later in the worst part of winter our only car Broke down. Thank God we made it through that bad year. One day I enrolled into the Excel center, to take some English classes in an effort to one day get into college. I never imagined I could get a certification through the excel center. The Excel center changed my life. It gave me the opportunity to obtain the knowledge and certification I needed to start a new career. What brought me to KLR pharmacy tech training was my want for change, and to better my family and my life. I was tired and frustrated with my dead end jobs and working from paycheck to paycheck. I took this class multiple times. And for several different reasons was unable to finish them. The first time took my class was with

Katie in person at the excel center. Everything went well even though for me it was a bit difficult as english is not my native language. I put in a lot of hard work and effort, unfortunately covid hit! The world shut down, and I was unable to take the NHA exam after passing my final exam. Due to the pandemic lots of time passed and I was required to retake the course again, in order to retake the exams. Due to the pandemic this time classes were online. This added

another layer of difficulty for me as english is not my native language. I personally preferred in person classes. Nevertheless I was very excited to start all over again. Unfortunately weeks into the course, I started feeling ill with stomach issues. I ended up needing surgery, this caused me to fall behind on my classes. This put me behind on my classes, with my language

barrier it made it very hard for me to catch up. Online classes required lots of writing and typing, things I was not very good at in english. Some time passed and Katie reached out, she asked how things were going for me as a

pharmacy tech. I told her I did not have the opportunity to take the final exam or national examswith only three weeks left in class. I lost my Job. I was very worried and did not know what to do. I felt ashamed of my situation, and I did not want to tell my teacher. I was so worried about the

fact that I could not find a job that I had trouble concentrating in class. At this point I didn't even want to continue with classes. I just want to thank Katie and my family, they kept encouraging and reminding me how close I was to completing the classes. Katie is one of the best teachers I've ever had! I Believe genuinely cares about all her students, she taught us all she knows. Katie will do everything in her power to make sure her students are prepared to pass their finals and NHA. There is one thing I will always remember as I Clock into my job as a future pharmacy tech: If you aren't ten minutes early then you re

late". What I found was most helpful for me in this class was the multiple choice activities and taking notes. I will use my new gained knowledge and certification to pridefully obtain a job in retail first and once I gain enough experience work at a hospital.