9/26/12

On being a student again

I am really enjoying nursing school. I've been tired, stressed and sick all week, but I still love it. We are starting to get more into the meat of things. Over the weekend I spent 20 hours doing clinicals at the hospital and it was pretty great. My highlight was translating for a Korean woman on the unit who was a North Korean refugee!

Also, I am meeting some great people, and people closer to my age and stage of life. I am in the accelerated program (14 months), and the forty of us have started taking separate classes from the other 140 students in the traditional track. Nursing is a second degree for most of us, so we tend to be older and have varied life experiences.

I can't remember the last time I was this stressed out. With studying for exams, juggling schedules of multiple classes and clinicals of multiple classes I've had my hands full. Plus, in this 6 week course I've been out of town 2 weekends and had clinicals another weekend. I learned my lesson this quarter about not taking on too much (I got sick). It's hard to be gone all weekend when I have an exam every Monday. But I'm still surviving and W has been a champ - grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, packing my breakfast and lunches and taking care of me when I was sick. During this season I've been reminded that two is better than one.

I'm such a different student now than I was in my first undergrad. Back then I took my education for granted, didn't fully realize the financial cost, didn't know what I was going to do with my degree, and didn't have motivation to do well. Now that I'm back for a second time, I'm keenly aware of the cost, have a clear idea about what I will do with my degree (at least for now - I may go back for grad school later), and am highly motivated to do well.

Those are my thoughts for now...gotta get back to studying. Finals are next week!