Nursing

A last-semester nursing student at William Penn University, Ruck has spent the last four years gaining experience and an education that may never have been accessible to her if not for WPU.

“I’ve always been interested in trying to get into medicine, but I’ve never managed back home,” Ruck, who was born and raised in South Africa, said.

Despite having a Bachelor of Science in human physiology, genetics and psychology and an honor’s degree in medical physiology, Ruck was rejected from medical programs in South Africa, which have strict race quotas. Unable to get accepted into a program, she ironically got a job teaching medical students instead – in a position that promised no development, promotion or raises in the future. “I was trying to move up in the world and I was just hitting walls everywhere,” she said. “Eventually, I decided that it’s now or never. I have to change something.”

She decided to leave that job and focus on finding scholarships to attend university in the U.S. and ultimately realize her dream of working in the medical field.

A mix of determination and serendipity took Ruck from that stagnant position in South Africa to the small Iowa town that would change her life. Now, nearly 9,000 miles from her hometown, Ruck wakes up every morning with the appreciative acknowledgment that she is living the American Dream.

“There is something special about the U.S. that a lot of people in the U.S. do not see anymore”

Penn, which Ruck discovered through a scholarship program, offered her the largest scholarship out of the schools she applied to—a blessing, Ruck says, that was so much more than a happy coincidence.

“I still 100% believe that everything happened so perfectly for me to be able to come here and stay here that it’s definitely God’s work,” she said. “There’s no other way all of this would have just happened and aligned perfectly.”

Just months after she began her search for American university opportunities, Ruck was boarding a plane to Iowa to begin her second bachelor’s degree. What she found when she got to campus wasn’t just a community, but a family. This is where she was meant to be.

That familial aspect of William Penn’s campus has been an essential part of Ruck’s transition to the United States, and Oskaloosa’s small-town feel has made her home-away-from-home all the more comforting and familiar. She appreciates the university’s small size and the way that it shows through the professors’ compassion and interest in their students.

“The family concept that people have here, it’s definitely been a key factor of me being able to adapt to coming to the U.S.,” Ruck said. “Just having the small community here at William Penn and having them look at me as an individual has made the world of a difference. It never would have been [possible] if they didn’t personally take the time to get to know me.”

Initially, Ruck came to Penn to study exercise science with the goal of applying to medical school afterwards. But after speaking with a professor and realizing the wealth of opportunities in nursing in the U.S., she proceeded to move forward on a new journey: A Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing.

“When I started finding out all these different opportunities in nursing, I was like ‘well this could work’,” she said. “I have learned so much and I am loving every little bit of it. I’ve never considered nursing because back home, nursing is very limited.”

On top of her studies, Ruck has worked a number of jobs over her four years in Oskaloosa in order to pay for not only attending school, but staying in the U.S.. She views those opportunities as yet another blessing made possible only through her relocation to WPU, as working her way through school would have been a near impossibility for her in South Africa.

“Being able to afford to study and having been given the great opportunity to work at the same time, I am very fortunate,” she said.

“Fortunate” is a word often spoken and feeling often felt by Ruck as she walks the Oskaloosa campus, her heart grateful for the chance to come to America and follow her dream.

A pillar proclaiming Penn’s advice – to be humble, be meek, be patient, be merciful, be loving, be generous, be just, be true, be grateful, be diligent, be thrifty and be temperate – stands proudly on WPU’s campus. Mari Ruck is just one of Penn’s more than 1,000 students who breathe spirit and life into those statements daily. Without each individual one of them, William Penn University would not be the same inspiring, creative and diverse institution that it is today.