Alright, guys its officially been a month since I started nursing school! I can not believe how quickly it went by. I have already completed my first nursing class which was Nursing Theory. Now lets quickly run through this class, again this is an accelerated course so its only four weeks long. It started with weekly ATI assignments, which you needed to score a 100%, then we were assigned a partner and a group. As for the partner, we were assigned to work together and write a four-page paper. This paper would be due the second week of school, as for the group assignment, we were to pick a theorist and make a 15 powerpoint slide with a voice over. This would be due the third week of school, then there was a midterm. Ahh, the midterm, we would be tested in the second week of school.
This could seem overwhelming but if you spread out your assignments as well as your reading, it wasn’t so bad. Did I forget to mention that on top of all the assignments there is also a ton of reading? I broke it down to about five to six chapters a week. Don’t get me wrong, at times I felt like it was too much handle only because I was commuting 4+ hours a day while working two jobs, I would try and get homework done wherever I could fit it into my schedule. Before work, during lunch, after work, now why not work on my assignments when I got home you ask? By the time I made it home with all the traffic, I would be home around 8:00 pm. Now, remember my days start bright and early, I am up by 5:00 am, so by the time I get home the last thing I want to do is hit the books. By the time I settled in, ate dinner, caught up with my honey and played with the pups it was almost 10:00 pm. Now there were days where I felt guilty for not studying, but I also am not one to retain information in short periods of time. It takes me about an hour alone to get myself situated where I can sit and start focusing, so trying to read for an hour or two didn’t feel like it was helping me.
The weekends are the days I would use for studying, I would lock myself up in my office after coming back from my part-time job and study for about 10-12 hours. Now I know this isn’t ideal for most of you, but this is the best way I am able to retain information. Of course, I would try and take a 15-minute break every two hours. Or I would break my day in half, I would start at noon and study till about 5:00 pm then take about an hour break and be back at it a 6:00pm usually my sessions would end at around 11:00 pm. After the second week, I felt better about school, I had communicated with my group, and partner to the point where we all knew what our parts of the assignments were. What do you think? It’s not to bad, right?
As for the midterm, I did request to take two days off, one day to study and one for the testing day. Which, I will say was not the best choice, I wish I would have taken an extra day to review, I didn’t do as good as I had hoped. This was a good lesson for me I soon had to chose if I wanted to continue to commute and work full time. Which I had thought of in the past, and I knew soon I would be leaving my job, however, it would be sooner than I expected. With the grade I received on midterm it wasn’t going to cut, now don’t get me wrong, I didn’t fail, but failing in this program is also considered scoring less than a 76%. I made the choice and of leaving my job that I loved a few days earlier. Now I’m sure your thinking that’s not bad, the thing was one of my providers had been out of the country for a conference for two weeks, this meant the week he would return he would be extremely busy. Now although my providers knew I was at the point of leaving, they understood when I informed them I had to leave sooner than expected. Never the less I still felt guilty leaving when they would be swamped. Now, this was a small pediatric office with three specialists and although their office was growing, this office also consisted of me and another medical assistant. As you can see we were a close-knit office, it felt as if I was bailing out on my work family, when they needed me the most.
Here is when Sabrina, my co-worker reminded me that I had worked very hard to get to this point and that leaving a few days earlier wasn’t going to kill them. She brought up a good point, in the end, I felt better about my decision, and I was able to concentrate on my final. Now I would have the occasional doubt in the back of my head, what if I don’t pass, and this was it? Now, this is why it is so helpful to have such a great support system. This, of course, was with the help of my great friend Jenett! She is always radiating positivity and the kind of person you want in your life, I had informed her how I felt and this is the quote she sent me. “I didn’t come this far to only come this far.”
Exactly! So simple, yet so true! I would give it my all, and that’s all I could do, the professor had given us the tools now all we had to do was use them, that wasn’t so difficult. Right? Of course, I scored a B+ on my final! I would have preferred an A of course but, I was happy with my grade, what a relief to walk out of that testing room, knowing I had completed my first class! I did it! I really did it! It felt amazing! Now, I had two days off to look forward too, which I had planned spending time with family, my honey, and of course, can’t forget the fur babies. Now, as I write this blog I am anxiously awaiting my next class which starts tomorrow. Health Assesment, finally we are on campus and I get to meet my classmates! Well, until next week I will let you know how my first week goes! And remember nursing school is not as bad as everyone says it is!
The Latina Nurse 