Two weeks ago today I had what I consider my actual first day in nursing school, with an all day long orientation. Basically they went over the syllabi for the first semester classes, the dress code etc so we could jump right in to classes on Monday. We even had reading to do the weekend before school actually started (which practically none of the almost 80 of us actually did. *sheepish look*). One of the first slides they showed us at orientation was the one pictured above, "Welcome to Nursing School, where every week feels like finals week." Not the most encouraging of choices. They told us that if class starts at 8 the doors will be locked at 8 and you will have to wait for an hour or so for a break to get in. Clinical folders must be in the drop box by 8am sharp Mondays or no credit. Test and overall grade, not just the two together must be at least a 75 to continue in the program. If you are found to be out of uniform on clinical days you will be sent home and given an F day, three F days and your out of the program. It seemed to go on and on.
The calendar's alone were enough to make a person's head spin. I think I remember someone saying that the idea of orientation was to make nursing school less scary or something. (I can't really remember the exact wording, a lot of what was said after 1 or 2pm didn't make it into my saturated brain.) However they phrased it, if that was their intention I think it had the opposite affect. They'd told us to go home and consolidate in color code all of our syllabus calendars into one so we could easily see what we had when. Chapters of reading, homework, virtual simulations, labs, going to actually hospitals in just a few weeks. Ah! We hadn't even started yet and I was pulling at my hair. Some days I'm at the school from 8 in the morning to 5:30 in the afternoon. To further complicate matters, there are variations in the schedule frommweek to week. It took me almost two hours to finish getting it all down and I just remember looking at my completed calendar and thinking "How am I going to keep up with all this?" I was actually wondering if the professors remembered that as 19-20 somethings we are still supposed to be getting seven or eight hours of sleep every night.
On the first day of class I got there almost half an hour early to make sure I would definitely be in the room before 8, and I wasn't even sure I had the right books. (My back pack weights a ton by the way. One of the textbooks weighs almost 10 pounds by itself.) Honestly we probably all looked like a very large herd of deer in front of the headlights of a giant semi. For the first couple of days I didn't even know for sure which class I was going to, I just knew which room I needed to be in at what time. One of my classmates summed up most of our feeling really well during our first study group. The student instructor was telling us to make sure we went to our professors if we needed help and one of the guys in the front said, "I wouldn't even know what to ask, I just feel like I'm drowning."
Luckily, by the middle of this week I felt like I was getting my head above water and now I think I am going to be able to swim. I'm actually starting to kind of enjoy this. I like my classmates, I knew several of them from prereqs and I'm getting to know more of my fellow students as we go.
We've got to wear our scrubs a couple of times and, not only do they make me almost feel like a nurse, I love all the pockets on mine. Seriously, there like nursing cargo pants. I don't even actually need that many pockets, but I still really like having them. Plus I think scrub pants beat yoga pants as far as comfort goes.
I have come to grips with the fact that weekends will pretty much no longer exist for me. While my flatmates are able to sleep in or watch tv/movies most of Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I just get a whole day or two to catch up on the reading/homework I have to finish before Monday. It's like every time I get my to do list down to a nice, manageable level and think "Hey, I might actually get to catch up on my show tonight", I realize I have three more things I'm supposed to finish as well.
Wednesday we got to practice finding injection sites on each other and then got to use different syringes and practice giving different kinds of shots (not as easy as stick in arm and push plunger, like I thought). They had us using hot dogs, oranges and foam pads instead of each other luckily. They even had us take them home to continue practicing/playing with them. As long as we promised not to stick our pets or our roommates that is.
Our first test was this Friday, over ten chapters, after only 5 actual class days. I did my best to study during the week, but I still had other reading to do; we didn't even cover all the material for the test until Tuesday. I studied for several hours after lab on Wednesday and quite literally all day Thursday trying to get ready. I was so worried that somewhere going through all that information I would miss something important. I think I did study everything I was supposed to, but nursing tests are hard. When it's multiple choice there's usually more than one correct answer, maybe all of them are technically right, and you just have to pick the best one. They'd warned us it was going to be that way, but even with the foreknowledge it doesn't make it any less frustrating.
I didn't do as well on the test as I like, I'm not usually happy with B's, but it wasn't bad for the first test. It turns out I was actually a little above the class average, so that made me feel better about it. I'm pretty sure I can do better on the next one now that I have a better idea how the test will be set up. I hope I can anyway, but I guess time will tell.
Well, that was my first two weeks of nursing school. I have a much better outlook on this now than I did two weeks ago. It's going to be difficult for sure, but now I'm sure I can keep up and do reasonably well.
