Mayuri Parmar was born and raised in Carol Stream, Illinois. Her father is a retired businessman, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom who now works at Walmart. 

Mayuri’s first memory of SkillsUSA Illinois is of the SkillsUSA Illinois State Leadership & Skills Conference her freshman year of high school. Her advisors had been involved with the program before and told her what the conference entailed, but it was still bigger and had more people than she ever expected. Mayuri competed in the Fashion Design (formerly Commercial Sewing) competition. While sewing isn’t what she eventually made a career of, she remembers how exciting it was to meet people from other schools who shared similar interests and goals. The energy and level of support and encouragement is something she still looks back on fondly. 

While participating in SkillsUSA Illinois, Mayuri was elected as a state officer, and it was during this time she really established preparation, leadership, teambuilding, and group work skills. She connected with educators, business partners, and peers from across the country, and was able to attend national level training. She is quick to point out that, no matter what level of participation you engage in, the skills learned are almost always transferable. 

After two years of virtual conferences, Mayuri returned as a volunteer in 2022 for the state conference. She noticed the increased excitement of the participants and that being able to participate in the in-person competitions and activities seemed to fuel participants’ passion and determination. She enjoyed the opportunity to give back to the organization in a volunteer capacity.

While in college, Mayuri had many different jobs. She credits her ability to obtain all these jobs by having the necessary soft skills to be able to build an impressive resume, interview well, and to speak to people of authority with confidence and professionalism in any situation. She mentions that, while COVID took away a lot of in-person communication for a while, she was still able to adapt and succeed because of her confidence in her abilities and her practice and experience through SkillsUSA Illinois.

Mayuri took it in stride, confident that while the world was changing, the things she had learned to help her cope had not.

Mayuri worked her way through college, unsure of what exactly she wanted to do. She obtained a BA in psychology and worked in a lab. She knew that wasn’t the position for her and that she had a desire to be more hands-on. She continued to try new things, becoming an EMT and also working in medical transcribing. While working as a Medical Assistant in a clinic, she was able to observe the nurses and see the many ways they helped people. It was then she decided to pursue a degree in nursing, knowing she could try out many kinds of nursing until she found the perfect fit. 

In the medical field, the adaptability factor has been and continues to be ever- present in every position since. When COVID hit, Mayuri recalls walking into the office one day and everything had changed: new protocols were in place, new requirements for patient treatment had been implemented, and they were all now facing processes and procedures that could change on a dime. Adaptation was the name of the game, and Mayuri took it in stride, confident that while the world was changing, the things she had learned to help her cope had not, and she would do her very best to continue to help others the best way she could. 

Mayuri is now in grad school to obtain her Doctorate of Acute Care Nursing and still draws back to SkillsUSA Illinois. She talks about the personality tests taken at that time and how they taught her about her own processing methods as well as how best to interact with others who have different ways of processing. Those lessons along with her nursing education and experience assist her with helping others in a deeper and richer way. She recently moved into a leadership role where she is creating an evidence-based project to improve their unit and create better patient outcomes. She is working with another chair and assessing the unit to gather data to meet needs and implement a plan.

Mayuri is grateful for her ability to pay for school with employer assistance covering 70% of the cost. She was also able to obtain a position in a unionized hospital, which affects many things from staffing ratios to staff input in worksite improvement. All these things allow her and her fellow coworkers to provide a better level of care for the patients in their facilities. 

While she knows her path may not be considered standard in the grand scheme of SkillsUSA Illinois, she is aware she may not be able to have been afforded the opportunities she experienced without the organization. She knows many people who got their first jobs through the organization and those connections and networking are things not many people entering the workforce are fortunate to experience. Mayuri strongly encourages people to try SkillsUSA Illinois, making the point that you never really know what something is like until you try it, but if you don’t try it, you also never know what could have been.