December 5, 2018 | By Doug Erickson | UW News
On Dec. 16, JoAnn Brink will earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing from UW–Madison, an effort that took 20 years.
“If you know me at all, I fight, I claw,” says Brink, 55, who grew up in Columbus, Wisconsin. “There was no way I was not going to finish that degree.”
Brink had earned a two-year associate degree in nursing from Madison Area Technical College in 1997. Yet she was determined to continue her education.
“The two-year degree at MATC is outstanding — I can’t say enough good things about it,” she says. “But I’ve always wanted a bachelor’s degree. I love to learn, and I felt the four-year degree would make me a more well-rounded person.”