Anyone who tells you that nursing school is easy is either lying or didn’t try. Nursing is probably one of the hardest schooling processes that you will go through, but I can guarantee that it is one of the most rewarding careers. You will want to cry and you will want to quit, but it’s in those moments where you have to fight even harder. Hopefully some of these tips will help you through the process.
1. Dealing with bodily fluids.
If you are in nursing school, you will probably already have a good handle of dealing with bodily fluids. If not…. You should probably learn because that will be what you will be dealing with on a day to day basis.
2. Don’t over think the questions on the test.
7. It’s okay to cry.
Whenever you lose your first patient, it will be hard and you will more than likely cry but if not then that’s okay. Everyone has different ways of dealing with death, especially as a nurse. And it is okay to empathize, that is what makes you human. Trust me, just being there for the patient to talk to them or to just be there and listen to the patient, it will mean the world to them. I just recently had a married couple where the husband was on CMO (comfort measures only) and the wife was angry and mean but I came to find out that all she wanted was someone to listen to her so that she can just vent. Sometimes that’s all that a patient needs, it is fine to be human and grow connections with your patients but at the same time you need to be careful as to how close you can get.
8. Your fellow nursing students will become your best friends and family.
You guys are in this together and no one will understand your school load better than your fellow nursing students.
9.Stress.
You will have to learn how to manage it. I will not lie to you but nursing school, in my opinion, is one of the most stressful things that you will go through. By the time that I was on week 5 of my 16-month program, I would let my stress and anxiety get so high that I would make myself physically sick and push away all of my friends. Learn how to manage it and your experience would be a little easier.
10. Organization and time management.
Learn how to manage your time and organize everything that you are going to do because that will help your stress levels tremendously. I used to be the girl who would pass through high school with flying colors with no organization to my day or things at all and where the world “time management” did not exist in my vocabulary. Guess what? I tried that in nursing school and that failed epically. The weekend after my fourth week I decided to take a crash course in time management and organization. IT WILL MAKE THINGS SO MUCH EASIER FOR YOU!
11. Caffeine and coffee will now make up the composition of your blood…
from late night studying to getting up for clinical, they will be your best friends throughout this entire experience. Whenever you start nursing school, if you aren’t like this already, people you see outside of school will more than likely see you with some form of caffeine every hour of the day. Just make sure to be aware and limit your intake of caffeine. Don’t be like me and drink at least 4-5 cans of monster and/or red bull a day. Once I realized the amount of caffeine that I was actually drinking per day, I tried stopping cold turkey. That didn’t work as well as I thought it would because I ended up going through legit withdraw with the fever, shaking, nausea, headache and irritability. It is okay to have caffeine, just make sure to moderate it.
12. Just have fun with it.
Yes, nursing school will make you want to quit, it will bring you down to your weakest form both sometimes mentally and emotionally. The stress will be overwhelming at times and you will feel like you are isolated because of the time investment you are giving. The biggest part to remember is to just have fun through it all. Whenever you finish school… yeah you will remember the hard times but you will also remember and want to share the good times. Remember to stop, look around and take it in whether it be going out to dinner with your fellow nursing students after class or having a good clinical with your patient. It will be those good memories that will help you keep going through the bad times.
