Every major in college is difficult. Even if your major is “easy” as people will say, there is still a lot of work that goes into it. With nursing, it’s hard and the work is never ending. I love my major don’t get me wrong, but it can be beyond stressful. It’s truly a struggle that only the people in your major can truly understand. So here are 12 struggles that only us nursing students will truly understand.

1. SO MUCH COFFEE

Oh, you don’t like coffee? Well, that’s just too bad. You are going to have to learn to like it. You have early morning class lectures, clinical labs that can be hours long, oh and also in one day you are expected to study 39 hours -- even though there're only 24 hours in a day. So, my suggestion is, find a flavored coffee you like and just put a ton of creamer in it so that you can’t even taste the coffee. Trust me, you'r going to need to basically buy coffee in stock for just one semester

2. What is a social life?

Between all of your classes and clinical labs and the many many many hours of studying, you will be lucky if you can even remember to eat throughout the day. Your roommates will basically think that you disappeared and they may even send out a search party for you. You can never make plans and keep them because you never know if you’re going to end up still working or studying. So when your friends ask you when your busy, give them your graduation date and tell them as soon as you walk across that stage you may finally be able to make it to lunch with them.

3. Select all that apply...

Not only are the tests in nursing simple just hard a very complex, but your professors will love to put "select all that apply" questions on your test. When you start to read them you think that maybe it could be all of them. But wait, it can’t be all of them can it? No just maybe like two… but now reading over them I don’t think it could any of them? Is this a trick question? Well, I’m not getting a 100% on this test.

4. Oh, all of the answers are right...?

So, wait a minute… You are telling me that even if it is multiple choice, you can’t really eliminate any because they are all right. You just have to pick the “best answer?" Okay, so this is a trick question kind of.

5. "Can you help me?" "What's wrong with me?"

So since you are a nursing student, your friends will now refer to you as a doctor basically. They will text you, call you, come running into your room at all hours of the morning just to ask you to diagnosis them. If they get a cut, they know you have Band-Aids. If they get a cold, they ask you what medicine to take. My advice, get a pager so they can contact you directly.

6. Wait, how many hours are in a day?!

So, on top of all of your in class time, you have to spend hours upon hours studying for these classes. Then also you have to shower, eat, sleep, and try to regain your sanity by the next day to do it all again. You cannot be a protagonist in nursing. You basically have to start all assignments 10 hours before you even get them. Every minute of the day counts. Twenty-four hours simply just isn’t enough… not even close.

7. Sleep? What is sleep?

Hopefully you don’t enjoy sleeping because it is not something that you will get a lot of during your time in nursing school. And even when you try to sleep, you are constantly thinking about all of the things you need to get done the next day. Or you are thinking about what you just studied for the past 9 hours for your test in just a couple of hours. And sometimes, you just know that you are not going to be sleeping that night. Instead at about 11pm you are going to the store to get as much sugar candy and caffeine you can to keep you and your friends awake all night to study.

8. No sir, I am not homeless.

Being comfortable is the only thing that you can control in nursing school. So, take advantage of that and buy as many yoga pants and sweat pants that you can. You won’t have time to do you hair and make up every morning. So buy a baseball hat because it will be your best friend. And if you ever do wake up early enough to look nice, you will probably instead be studying or trying to rush to get all of your work done.

9. Constant Break Downs

Most likely every day you will have a nervous breakdown. You will cry and wonder how you will move on. The stress will get to you and you will start to break down. The important thing is to just keep pushing on.

10. Threatening to drop out.

I want to say that every day since I have started nursing school, I have threatened at least three times a day that I was going to drop out. Of course, I didn’t mean this literally… well at least not all of the times. A couple times it will get to you and you may mean it a little bit.

11. Nursing is so easy.

Excuse me? I'm learning to save lives and that means learning about your body and making sure I don't kill you.

12. Your new "diet" program.

So, most college kids when they first go to college start to eat a little different from home. They aren’t eating home cooked meals anymore, you are probably ordering pizza more, you may just be eating snacks all the time. But as a nursing student you are manly going to have a diet that consists of coffee, caffeinated beverages, cereal bars (since they can be easily carried in your backpack), and maybe, if your lucky and you don’t have a lot of work, you may possibly get to eat one meal, even if it is just Ramen noodles.

So, even though nursing school may be beyond challenging and you may just want to give up before you even start, remember why you chose nursing. Remember that you will be able to change people’s lives for the better. Remember that in a couple years all of the pain and torture will be worth it!