It's Been a Rough Week.

This week has challenged me more mentally and physically than any other week of nursing school. Returning from my relaxing week back home, I literally hit the ground running - I was going to miss the streetcar and have to wait another twenty-something minutes for the next one. I had several meetings scheduled and events to arrange as well as homework and working out. Yet with all that I am doing, I could not outrun the cold that is going around campus. I am currently fighting, tooth-and-nail to get over it, but for some reason, I cannot shake it! I need not tell you how FRUSTRATING IT IS.

With all that is going on, I am more frustrated with the sources of my friends' worries. One of the biggest concerns has been clinical sites that lack concern for residents to the extent that the residents are not receiving adequate care. Another concern has been our research course, which does not seem to satisfactorily prepare nursing students for the papers assigned. The last major concern has been keeping track of all the assignments due for each class. Although it does not seem like a significant concern, the Linfield nursing curriculum is linked with four classes a semester that must be taken concurrently and sometimes course assignments seem to run into each other because they are similar in topic.

 It is unfortunate that some clinical sites do not provide adequate care for its residents, however, as nursing students we should take that upon ourselves to make a good example. This is what we are taught to do - to develop our critical thinking skills and make the healthcare community better as best as we can! It seems daunting for a first semester nursing student, but we are also adults with two years of education behind us.

As far as our research course goes, I applaud students' efforts to go above and beyond realistic expectations of educational standards of nurses. Not many nursing students will go into research, but they still feel the need to learn the material. The students are struggling to write a literature review. Not only have we had very little experience with APA formatting, we do not understand the structure of a literature review. It is one thing to have very little instruction but plenty of resources and it is another thing to have very little instructions and very little resources. Fortunately, students have bonded together and commiserated over the lack of collective knowledge.

The last concern my friends' had was over the seemingly haphazard scheduling of assignments. One piece of advice given to us at orientation was to write all the assignments and projects out in our planners so we would always have a complete reference. The unfortunate part of this, is that professors often rearrange schedules and accommodate to the learning styles of each class. This can form a jumble of problems for those nursing students who like to have clearly defined schedules.

I apologize for my rant, I just want people to realize that nursing students are humans too. My friends and I are all compassionate people that want to be the best nurses, and people, we can be. Nursing school is challenging me in ways I had not even imagined - and it is only the first semester! If all weeks are like this, I may need more support, but I refuse to give in and fall into the monotonous stereotype of a nurse. I am not going to college, putting in this much work, and drinking this much caffeine to end up like that.