I feel like I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We have one more semester, one more practicum and then a preceptorship and then we are done!
The most challenging part of the semester has been having little to no time off to do things for myself because school always comes first. Being that this program is fast tract you always have to keep up with your assignments otherwise you will fall behind.
The aspect that really surprised me the most was finding out that nurses really do everything. From painting nails, to sitting with patients at feeding time, nursing ranges from doing actual nursing duties and goes so much more beyond that.
My goals for the second half of the Practical Nursing program is to finish every class with the highest mark I can and to find a job. My midway resolutions are to not leave case studies till the last minute because rushing them at the end isn’t fun!
My advice to incoming nursing students is to be prepared to have no life. Saying no to your friends all year has been really hard on friendships. Having a good support system really makes all the difference in your grades and whether you can get through the program or not. Also, try not to overwhelm yourself. Working and being in school can be very hard to handle so what I did was finished first semester without a job to get an idea of how to handle nursing school, then come second semester I got a job working only one day week.
I wish I knew how to properly study before starting this program. For me, I had no clue what to do or how to retain information. After being in school for a few months I learned the ways of studying and what ways worked for me, but had I of known this at the beginning it would have been very helpful in getting through the harder classes of the program such as Anatomy and Pharmacology.
