This nursing student story essay was selected from BrainTrack's Nursing Schools Scholarship for fall 2009. At the time of submittal this entrant was studying for a Bachelor of Nursing at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. .
Wishes Had Known |
Program Likes/Dislikes |
Choosing Nursing
What do you wish you had known about selecting and entering your nursing school that would be helpful to others going into nursing?
Selecting and entering nursing school is both an exciting and frightening time that may raise many questions. As a prospective or current nursing student, it is important to determine why you wish to go to nursing school you and to build rapport with nursing faculty. Oftentimes, I have heard nursing students say that they choose to go to nursing school because their parents advised them to do so or solely for financial security as a new graduate. The nursing profession is not an easy career to pursue and choosing to be a nurse in order to meet the expectations of others or earn a high salary will most likely not result in a genuine passion and dedication to the nursing practice. I truly believe that is vital that students entering nursing school reflect on their feelings and thoughts about why they wish to devote their lives to the nursing profession and what factors have influenced their decision to enter nursing school.
Clinical experience has taught me that nursing is a rewarding but demanding profession that requires determination, stamina, time-management, organization, compassion and patience. It is important that students entering nursing school choose a career path in nursing to fulfill their dreams and vision of who they would like to become.
The path of successfully completing nursing school is achieved through both individual efforts and the help and guidance of nursing faculty and staff. As a freshman in nursing school, I was reserved, slightly intimidated by my professors and clinical instructors and did not realize the importance of building relationships with my nursing educators. Students entering nursing school should know that your professors and clinical instructors are there to facilitate your learning and want to see you flourish and growth. Nursing faculty have been out in the field as practicing nurses and are there to help you become the caretakers, researchers, and educators of tomorrow. It is important to build rapport with nursing faculty not only for academic reasons but will also be important in achieving future career goals in nursing. Applications for summer nursing internships, graduate nursing programs and nursing-related jobs will most likely require letters of recommendation. Viewing professors not only as educators but also as advisors and mentors is key in the nursing career path.
What have you enjoyed most and least during your nursing degree program so far?
The process of becoming a nurse has not been automatic or instant but a challenging journey. Nursing school has challenged me academically, mentally and physically and has taught me what it means to be a critical thinker in caring for diverse populations. The facet of nursing school that I have most enjoyed is having clinical experiences related to academic courses. These clinical experiences have provided me with the opportunity to apply classroom knowledge to real-life situations within the health care setting. I have had clinical experiences in both hospital and school settings throughout the District of Columbia and Virginia.
My experiences include visiting an adult detention center, teaching health-related information to schoolchildren and numerous hospital patients and conducting community health interviews. These clinical experiences are of personal significance because I believe that my education reaches beyond the vicinity of the classroom. I also learn from the innumerable life lessons I encounter outside the classroom. My nursing school educators have encouraged me to not limit my education to textbooks but to broaden my worldview and awareness by caring, teaching and interviewing individuals out in the community and observing firsthand the healthcare challenges that people face. Through these experiences, I have grown and continue to grow intellectually and emotionally and have come to appreciate that the world is too vast in opportunities to learn and grow, for me to narrow my mind to what is near at hand.
The classroom knowledge that I have applied in my clinical experiences has not been easy to accrue and retain. The least enjoyable component of nursing school has been the difficult core sciences required for nursing such as pharmacology, human biology and pathophysiology. On occasion, it has been daunting to pick up my ten pound nursing textbook and realize that I will eventually learn, retain, and apply the information contained in that colossal textbook and attend the three-hour class that accompanies learning the material. I have come to know the library all too well through long days and nights studying for my big nursing exam or writing the infamous nursing care plan. There have been no shortcuts in nursing school; I have had to persevere through challenging coursework but ultimately, I know that all my hard work will be the foundation for my profession in nursing.
What led you to choose nursing as a career path?
“The measure of a country's greatness should be based on how well it cares for its most vulnerable populations”. These words have been uttered by several historical American figures but impersonalizes why I have choose nursing as a career path. As a nursing student in my senior year of college, I have seen individuals in their most vulnerable states. I have been constantly reminded of the fragility of human life truly is but also of the tenacity of the human spirit. I have cared for a wide spectrum of patients including newborns embarking on the journey of life and individuals of various ages at the end of their life. I have spoken to individuals in behavioral health units regarding their perspective of mental illness and have assisted patients, determined to regain their strength, engage in muscle strengthening exercises.
As a young girl in high school, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in healthcare. I contemplated on the various medical careers but knew I wanted to dedicate my life to a career that cared for individuals for what they are in their essence; multidimensional human beings with not only a physiological component but also psychological and spiritual components as well. When a family member of mine fell ill and was admitted to the hospital while I was in high school, I remember going to my family member's hospital room and being taken aback by the various monitors and hospital devices and my family member's weak, altered state. Various healthcare providers entered and exited my family member's hospital room but it was the nurse who consistently came into the room to check on my family member and inquire how my family member felt and if anything was needed, who remained engrained in my mind as exemplifying holistic nursing care. the nurse was not simply a healthcare provider for my family member but a trusted source of physical and mental sustenance. It was from this occurrence that my contemplations of what career path I wished to pursue crystallized. I wanted to be a nurse.
In my perspective, the word “nurse” is more than an occupational title, it is a calling to care, nurture, restore and uphold the dignity of another human being or community. It is a great responsibility but also an incredible honor to dedicate myself to the nursing profession and caring and advocating for individuals who cannot do so themselves. My past three years of nursing school have made me realize that the vulnerable are not only children and those in hospitals and nursing homes but also those who are uninsured and lack access to quality healthcare. I envision a nation that serves the health care needs of all vulnerable populations, whether that be the young, poor, sick, dying, imprisoned or uninsured. I not only envision such a health care system but also have a strong desire to be one of the individuals who works to materialize this vision in my role as a nurse.
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