Nursing students everywhere have all similar struggles and can all come to an equal understanding when it comes to school. Many things come right to mind when I think of how much my life has changed since I made the decision to study nursing.
I have gave up a lot just to allow myself to go through this schooling but it was all proven to be worth it. If you are a nursing student I can almost guarantee all of these will spark an insight into what it is like.
1. Coffee is our water
It should seriously be "Nurses run on Dunkin" because the hours spent studying, waking up at the crack of dawn for clinical, the lack of sleep, the amount of school work, etc. would not at all be possible without the energy that coffee gives us.
2. Broke is an understatement
Who can work when you have probably more than one nursing exam, 2 care plans due on two different patients, clinical paperwork, ATI's, homework, etc? Squeezing in time to work is seriously a hard task and so money is often sparse and being a broke college student becomes an understatement.
3. College students go out every weekend?
Of course nursing students do get to go out from time to time, but the whole "I am a college student and go out 4 days a week" is not a thing to us. We know the struggles of having time to go out but realizing we have to do an assignment a week ahead of time because we know about how much we will be slammed with during the week. There is no such thing as free time when you are a nursing student. More like a study party. And when we do go out after a while, it is a complete and utter disaster.
4. Chose the answer that is most correct
Nursing students know the real struggle of narrowing down a test question to two answers because of all the 4 answers on a test question they are all correct; except you have to chose the answer that is MOST correct. It is not just a regular test where there is a right answer. You are ALWAYS right but it's not always the best answer.
5. Don't forget, select all that apply
This "select all that apply" is 10x worse than choosing the answer that is most correct. It doesn't matter if you have 2 of the 3 answers that are correct, you still get the entire question wrong. Not to mention, almost every single question on our licensing exam is select all that apply. If you think these are easy, you are simply not human.
6. Mental breakdowns and saying "I'm changing majors"
7. Saying goodbye to straight A's
Although you may have had straight A's in high school, say goodbye to that 4.0 GPA you were hoping for. You envy college students that have straight A's but you also don't realize that they also don't study nursing. We tend to be so hard on ourselves for not getting perfect grades but we truly don't get ourselves enough credit for just passing (which may I mention is about an 80 to even pass a class).
8. Dreading writing care plans (Rn Dx, Related To, As Evidenced By)
You think nursing students just go to clinical to learn how to care for patients to learn? WRONG. SO WRONG. We spend HOURS after clinical making care plans, reflections, SBAR assignments, etc. to hand in to our clinical professor on time on top of all the other class work we have to do for our other nursing classes.
9. What is sleep?
Have a test tomorrow? Who cares if you studied a week in advance, you know for sure you will be up the whole night up until the test is that morning. Have homework due in class? You know you will be up well past 3 in the morning finishing it.
10. Not yet a nurse, but friends and family sure as hell think you are
When friends or family talk about a possible medical condition and ask you to help them, you always have to remind them that you are not yet a nurse. Yet, they still want your opinion even though you have no idea if you are right or wrong. Nursing students are always receiving texts and calls from their friends that are being hypochondriacs or are sick.
11. More reading to do than reading the bible 7 times
There is no such thing as "finishing all of your reading." Teachers assign 4 chapter readings, let me remind you. One chapter is at least 50 pages of text book readings. Also, don't forget you have to outline all this reading because you know you are guaranteed to forget over half the stuff you have read.
12. Friends from nursing school are different from the rest
You can have all the best friends in the world but nothing compares to your nursing friends. They understand EVERYTHING you are going through. They know the struggle, the hardships, and the amount of stress each of you are under. I don't think it is possible to survive nursing school without them (shout out to Alexis and Jenna). They are there through every failure and every success.
13. Getting used to waking up while it's still dark for clinical
Every nursing student knows this struggle for sure and we might as well get used to it.
14. You hate bodily fluids? Might as well change your major
Nursing majors care and love more for other people that they are willing to clean up every single type of bodily fluid possible no matter what the situation. We are experts at wiping butt if you like it or not.
15. But...No matter what there is no other life we would chose
Nursing is not a career, it is a calling. It is the most amazing thing in this world there is to do. A nurse cares for someone else so much more than they do for themselves, and they don't even have to know the person. All the sweat, tears, blood, etc. are all worth it to us. "The best way to find yourself is in the service of others."
16. There is NO such thing as 'syllabus week'
Doesn't matter if your first class of the semester is one hour or if it is three hours there is never just a syllabus week. You are always staying the whole class and you are always beginning material.
17. Every week is finals week
Every week feels like finals week. The amount of stress and work due each week is overwhelming. But somehow we manage to get it done.
