From Radio City to Hospital Rounds

Nine years as a Radio City Rockette prepared Kristen Grace Smith (NYU Meyers ’24) for a bright future as a nurse.

Working holidays. Bringing smiles to children’s faces. Wearing matching outfits with a tight-knit community of coworkers.

A career as a nurse might not seem to have much in common with the life of a professional dancer, but Kristen Grace Smith (NYU Meyers ’24) felt a strong connection the moment she stepped into Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in 2019 in her candy cane-inspired Rockettes costume and shiny silver heels. It was the holiday season, and Kristen and a fellow Rockette were spreading holiday cheer to patients at Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital with the Garden of Dreams Foundation, a nonprofit that works with the MSG Family of Companies, which includes the Rockettes, to uplift young people in need in the tri-state area.

The afternoon of arts and crafts and talking with the children set the dancer on a new path.

“Being immersed in the hospital environment and seeing how amazing the nurses were with the kids and their family members—it sparked something,” says Kristen. “I was so happy and comfortable being there.  There was something inside me that was pulling me towards nursing.”

Growing up on Long Island, Kristen put on her first pair of tap shoes at age three, the same year she saw the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall for the first time—an event that turned into an annual holiday outing. She spent her summers in intensive dance programs, including one by the Rockettes, and first auditioned for the company as an 18-year-old while a dance major at Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Kristen was offered a coveted spot on the Rockettes line after her third audition, just as she was heading into her junior year of college. She juggled dance and academics, working toward her undergraduate degree during spring semesters, rehearsing with the Rockettes six days a week during the fall, and performing at Radio City for as many as 16 shows a week during the busy holiday season.

For nearly a decade, Kristen spent her holidays living out her childhood dream, but she knew that she wasn’t going to dance professionally forever. “I wanted my next job to also be a dream job. If I’m going to do something besides dance, I want it to be fulfilling and meaningful,” she says.
 

Deciding on nursing school gave her a new sense of purpose. Supported by the Rockettes’ tuition reimbursement program, which provides support for performers to pursue interests beyond dance, Kristen enrolled in prerequisite courses in chemistry, microbiology, and anatomy. She applied to several schools but had her heart set on NYU after that fateful visit to Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital. (She was already fond of the place given that her grandfather is also an alum of NYU’s law school. “Violet was in my veins,” Kristen says with a laugh.)  

Kristen was accepted to NYU Meyers’ accelerated 15-month baccalaureate program for students who come to nursing with a bachelor's degree in another field. “The second I started school here at Rory Meyers College of Nursing, I knew this is where I needed to be,” she says.

Kristen’s first clinical rotation as a nursing student brought her to the very hospital where she was born: NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island (formerly Winthrop Hospital). And while she’s enjoyed her coursework and clinicals in everything from psychiatric mental health nursing to palliative care, the real full-circle moment came in late 2023 when she returned to Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital for her pediatrics rotation—an experience that reaffirmed her interest in working with kids.

“I knew the nursing world was big, but once I got to NYU, I saw that it really is so wide and vast—there are so many opportunities in the field,” she says. 
 

Kristen looks forward to officially joining the nursing community following her May 2024 graduation, at which she will take the stage as one of this year’s valedictorians. Her learning won’t stop there: she's been accepted to a master’s degree program at NYU Meyers to become a pediatric nurse practitioner, which she plans to pursue in the coming years. As Kristen begins her nursing career, she’s not fazed by the prospect of working nights or holidays—it’s something she is used to from her years as a Rockette performing on stage at Radio City and in Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parades.

“Being a Rockette was my childhood dream come true,” says Kristen. “There are not many people who can say they’ve pursued their childhood dream, and now I get to follow my second dream of being a pediatric nurse.”