Nursing School Stories
Return to: Becoming a Nurse
Please share your stories on becoming a nurse. Regardless if you made it and got your RN or if you are just getting started, help others by telling your story. Why did you decide to become a nurse, how did you select your school and complete your prerequisites and how was nursing school- the good the bad and the ugly?
March 22nd, 2008 at 2:04 pm
I started nursing school because I needed to get what I call “a real job”. I was 36 and I still had not started a career. I had a bachelor’s degree and went to Pharmacy school for a year. I actually applied to nursing school the afternoon that I withdrew from Pharmacy school and they told me it would be about 2 years before I would be able to start. Needless to say, 2 years later I started nursing school.
My first semester of nursing school was hell, not because of the subject matter, but because of an instructor that I had for lecture, skills and clinicals. I never knew if she was going to be nice and calm or mean and vindicative. She seemed to enjoy making my friends, who were forty and fifty year old women cry. Near the end of the semester, I confronted her about the way she had been treating me and she did make an effort to hide her true feelings. In the end, I was only 2 of 9 in the clinical group that passed that semester.
After that semester, things have been easier. I have had difficult teachers, but I learned a lot from them. One of the most difficult things was just learning how to answer the test questions. You could always get it down to two choices that looked right, but one was supposed to be better than the other.
I am now weeks away from graduating and becoming a nurse and I am excited and scared to death. I worry that I am not prepared enough to be the nurse, but other nurses tell me that I will learn everything I need to know once I start working so why did I go to school? To the student who is just starting, get an NCLEX book to study from right away. Some of you might ask, why do I need that book now? Well, they can help you become familiar with the type of questions that will be asked on your exams and some of the book contain outlines that you can use to study.
May 18th, 2008 at 5:27 am
My nursing school story. I started nursing school at a later age. I was working as a database administrator and going through a divorce when I decided it was time for a career change.
I was not sure if becoming a nurse was right for me so I decided to get a job as a PCT at the local hospital. This helped out in three ways. First, it helped me make a decision to become a nurse. Second, the knowledge and experience helped in nursing school and in future employment. Finally, the hospital gave me a $5,000 stipend to help pay for my education.
It took me a year and a ½ to complete all my pre-requisites and get officially started in the nursing program. The first semester was rough my clinical instructor was, well I will just say nothing, but you get the point and I decided to stop working due to the stress. The second semester was much better and after the end of it I was able to sit for my LPN. I was hired on by a nursing agency that paid me $25/hour and did some prison nursing while working to complete my RN.
The third semester was easy. We did Peds, OB and Pysch. The forth semester was tough. Not in a weird way like the first, but just a ton of content and very difficult subject matter. I am now done and have been hired on at the floor I worked on as a PCT.
–Gene