Whether you are a past, future, or present nursing student, these are all thoughts and experiences you most likely have had or will have at some point.
1. You consider multiple ways to miss an exam.
Taking a nursing exam is the most traumatic experience possible. Between thinking about your grades and GPA, you would do anything to get out of an exam... Even though it's impossible. The thought of having to have a high test average to pass is nauseating. You have probably considered jumping out of a window, getting hit by a car, or even getting abducted by aliens just to avoid the test. But chances are, the professor will meet you in the ER or somewhere on Mars just to be sure you take that exam.
What's even worse? Waiting for the grade itself...
2. You have diagnosed yourself.
After taking pathophysiology and health assessment, you can diagnose anyone with anything possible, including yourself. Between the Internet and knowing that basically everything has the same exact symptoms, a common cold can easily be diagnosed as the plague, a migraine is a hemorrhagic stroke, and a calf cramp is a DVT that could dislodge and become a PE at any minute.
3. Your professors assess you when you think you're sick.
Mentioning that you don't feel well in front of a professor turns into a complete physical. They ask you your signs and symptoms, take your vital signs. They look in your ears, nose and throat. They basically obtain your whole health history via the nursing process. And yup, it's only allergies.
4. Clinical feels like a job... and you want to be paid.
The further you get through clinical, the more you learn. You start with nursing assistants' skills and build up until you are injecting people with Lovenox and insulin. It gets to a point where you realize you do more work than the actual staff. You answer the call lights, bring everyone to the bathroom, do all of the care, and give basically everyone their medications... All for your "education." The nurses and aides love having students because we do most of the work. We're doing all the work and the nurses are getting paid a pretty penny.
5. You wonder how half of the people in your classes will even be nurses.
The day someone asks you if a diagram of a shoulder joint (scapula and all) is a knee joint, you wonder how half these people are even in the nursing program. You watch a girl gagging over a little bit of urine, hear someone say they refuse to wipe a butt, and a guy asks you where a catheter goes in a female; it's quite the experience. Of course everyone has to learn, but you know one of the questionable people when you meet them. You just know..
How are you even here!?
6. You stay up late studying... and eating.
Nursing school turns early birds... into night owls... into miserable, antisocial, hibernating bears. You stay up all through the night eating, studying, trying to get ahead on assignments, and stressing out. Then during the day you want to skip class and sleep all day.
7. Even when you're right, you're still wrong.
"SELECT ALL THAT APPLY" questions are a product of Satan himself. You are given multiple answers that are right, and one or two wrong, but you have to pick the right ones, all the right ones. Trick is, sometimes if you don't pick one that is right or pick one that isn't right, the question is marked wrong. No partial credit, nothing.
You know what's even better? When they give you a question where all of the answers are right but you can only pick one answer... but you have to pick the MOST RIGHT ONE.
(Maslow's Hierarchy becomes yourbest friend, but doesn't always help. Welcome to nursing!)
8. You have multiple mental breakdowns a week.
Whether it's a crying kind of breakdown or a laughing like a mad person breakdown, they happen multiple times every week. The more tests, assignments, and useless projects assigned for a week, the more meltdowns. Crying will become publicly acceptable amongst your nursing peers.
It's fun to tally how many you have a semester (August 31, the tally begins again).
My favorite kind of meltdown is when you eat everything in sight to avoid crying, then complain about your clothes feeling a bit tight.
9. You never knew college would be this physically and mentally strenuous.
High school wasn't too bad, a few rough patches but okay. The Nursing program is far more complicated and mentally strenuous than I expected. I thought I would be doing more "nurse" things, not picking up the CNAs' slack. I have to get a certain test average grade to pass before my other assignments are factored into my final grade, I can't choose where I go for clinical, I am forced to get injections and TB tests every semester; it's nothing what I thought.
10. You have no social life.
Because of said assignments and exams, your social life takes a turn for the worse. There's a little while where you don't want to participate in school activities or weekend adventures. In the off chance you do give into temptation of having fun, you regret it. Immediately. Because it is a fact of life is that the most fun activities take place the weekend before a final exam.
Hopefully the 30 likes on Instagram will be worth it.
11. You realize you're going to be an AMAZING nurse.
Despite the ups and downs of nursing school, you know you will be a fabulous nurse. You know why you entered the field and won't let anything or anyone get in your way. Even if a crazy weekend throws you back, it certainly won't stop you! You will learn balance and will go on to pass the NCLEX and all will be well.
Keep on going!
