Photos: College of Nursing grads Pool Plunge 2025

On April 29, bachelor’s degree students preparing to graduate from UIC College of Nursing continued a more than 40-year tradition — the Pool Plunge. Following their College of Nursing awards and pinning ceremony, the nearly 60 nursing students lined up at the pool in UIC’s Sport & Fitness Center, counted down and jumped in the water together, all wearing their scrubs.

Each year, the College of Nursing Student Council organizes the Pool Plunge and the class of undergraduate nursing students passes the tradition on to the next year’s class.

“This has been something we have been looking forward to for two years,” said Angelica Omega, one of this year’s participants. “It’s great to continue on this tradition, being alongside our peers who we’ve spent long nights with and been through really difficult clinics with. It is just nice to know that we are all here doing this together.”

Omega’s fellow nursing graduate and Pool Plunger Lazaria Belcher added, “I’m excited, too. I saw the news clips from last year’s pool jump and I was like, wow, we are about to be in there next.

“It’s an accomplishment for us to be almost done with school, graduating next week. I’ve been (waiting for) this experience, the tradition of jumping after our ceremony. I don’t really know how to swim, but my best friend (Omega) has me!”