Nicole King, a former WCHS student, graduated in 2020 to pursue her dreams in the medical field. Although, Nicole later found out that her plans would take a turn.

Nicole now works full-time at KinderCare. This is a private primary school in Lexington, Kentucky. She also attends online classes at BCTC and is leaving for basic training for the National Guard in September 2021.

I spent a day with Nicole to unravel what she does on a daily basis. Read on to learn more about her!

Q: Describe your typical Monday.

A: “I normally wake up depending on when my boss wants me there. 6:50 to 7 o’clock or even as decently beautifully as late as 10 am. It honestly just depends on what staff we have for that day. Then, I go to work and work for however long I’m asked to. Most of the time I get home around 5 o’clock. After I get home, I normally like to go to Versailles. I know that sounds really stupid but I drive all the way from Lexington to Versailles. I go to either visit a friend or just to see my family and hang out with them, cause you know sometimes a girl needs to see her family. After I leave Versailles, it’s at around 7-8 pm and I normally drive to my apartment in Lexington. I change into some workout clothes and I hit the gym typically from around 9-11 pm. I come home, I take a shower, get ready for bed, and knockout before 12 am if I get my stuff (studying and training) done as quickly as I can.”

Q: Why did you change career fields?

A: “I actually got out of high school thinking I had my entire life planned out, you know I knew what college I was going to, how I was gonna transfer over (to the University of Kentucky). I had scholarships for my degree and everything.  However, I think it’s important for people to know that even you can walk out of high school knowing what you’re gonna do and not persuing it exactly the way you want to. Um after my first semester of college, I realized the medical field was not a degree that I wanted to pursue the rest of my life. I enjoyed learning about it but it wasn’t gonna make me happy in the long run. To me, that’s really important, so then I started doing some search in my heart and in my life and I found something that was really passionate about pursuing was education and being a teacher. Even when I had that planned out, I still ended out detouring and joining the military all doing all kinds of crazy things.”

Q: Why did you enlist in the military?

A: “Whenever I made that decision, I didn’t have a clear-cut answer either. Looking back, I still don’t have an easy 2-word answer but for me, I decided to go because I knew something wasn’t right. I started doing some digging to what would make me happy. Finding what makes you happy is pretty much the essence of the most important thing in life but everything I chose, you know. I had chosen a field that I was happy in, but for some reason, that wasn’t fulfilling everything that I wanted in my life. So, I started thinking maybe it was the environment, but it wasn’t the environment. Maybe if it was just people in my life and it felt like a series of things. It kept pointing me to go to the military. So, I enlisted and it did a lot of good for me. It gave me the opportunity to travel, it gave me scholarships, gave me chances to meet new people, it pushed me beyond my boundaries. I know it’s not gonna be easy, and I know it’s not gonna be comfortable, but it’s gonna push me. One of the best things that actually happened was I saw a lot of people’s true colors when I had officially told people that I was joining. Some of my family and friends chose not to talk to me anymore, and actually, a lot of new people started talking to me and reached out about the military.”

Q: What advice would you give high school students?

A: “Nothing is set in stone and you make your own way. One of my favorite things is that I’ve learned is comfort does not equal greatness. I think that’s pretty important to carry with you. You’re gonna have to work hard to make yourself happy to get the things you want out of life all the time. A lot of people think they can just find satisfaction in something that’s easy and honestly, something that’s easy isn’t worth it. Everything can be changed, you know, you can always pave your own way. If you don’t like the story you’re in, change it because you’re the author of your book. Just remember that some of the best books show some of the worst challenges.“