Fiona Erskine
Age: 21
Hometown: Charlottesville, VA
Region: Philadelphia
Center: Blue Ridge
Enrollment: 7/14/2015 – 6/22/2018
Certifications: Clinical Medical Assistant, Phlebotomy Technician, EKG Technician, Patient Care Technician, Medical Administrative Assistant, Electronic Health Records Specialist, and CPR

Fiona Erskine had a rough time through her senior year of high school in her hometown of Charlottesville, VA. She did earn her diploma in the end, but after graduation, she wasn’t really sure what she wanted to do. Fiona’s mother heard about Job Corps because she had explored it as an option for Fiona’s brother a couple of years earlier. Both of her parents supported her enrolling in Job Corps, believing that it provided her the best opportunity to earn an education and find a fulfilling career path.
Fiona absolutely made the most out of her time at Blue Ridge Job Corps, earning a multitude of certifications and credentials, including Clinical Medical Assistant, Phlebotomy Technician, EKG Technician, Patient Care Technician, Medical Administrative Assistant, Electronic Health Records Specialist, and CPR. On top of all of this, Fiona was accepting into the Associate’s Degree Radiography Program at Virginia Highlands Community College as a part of Blue Ridge Job Corps’ Advanced Career Training (ACT) Program. Her story is one of perseverance. When she originally applied to the Radiography program, she was not accepted due to her previously low GPA. She continued to work and push to achieve her goal, and once she was accepted, she had become a straight A student.
Her advice to current and future Job Corps student is to stay focused on their goals and not to get caught up in drama that can come with sharing dormitories and classrooms with a large number of young people. Fiona was able to do this astonishingly well, never receiving a negative incident report in her entire three-year stay. “To be successful you have to put yourself above those trying to pull you down; you can do anything you put your mind to if you want it bad enough,” she stated.
Fiona’s short term goal is to complete the Radiography program at Virginia Highlands Community College and earn her Associate’s Degree, while her long term goal is to move back to her hometown of Charlottesville, VA and apply to the Interventional Radiology program at the University of Virginia. Fiona is truly a tremendous Blue Ridge Job Corps success story.