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I finally graduated from nursing school with an Associate’s Degree (2 year degree). I was ecstatic. But now I had to find a job. And wouldn’t you know that of all of the places that were experiencing a nursing shortage, I’d be in the one place that WASN’T having much of a shortage!! Yeah, I interviewed for three jobs and got two out of three offers. I ended up taking the third offer. It was an hour and a half interview. I got all kinds of wild questions which included: “What do YOU think the pillars of nursing are?” and “Tell me about a time when you have deviated from policy.” Yeah. Are these like trap questions or what?! I bombed the first interview having no idea of how to answer these types of questions. I don’t believe anything really prepared me for this part. I wish that my school had given a one day seminar or something of the like to help us with interviewing.
So, my first job was to work nights on a medical-surgical floor. I swore up and down I was not going to work on a med-surg floor and I was CERTAINLY not going to work nights. Guess what….I did both.
I began this program having almost all of my prerequisites finished. This would make my life a ton easier during the program. I remember the first day: orientation. I saw the second year nursing students walk in and thought “Wow. I wish I were one of them. They are almost done.” In a two year program, they were considered “Seniors”, while we were considered “Freshmen”. I never understood how that worked exactly, being a junior college and all, but whatever. In only one year I would too be a senior nursing student.
I did feel a little bitter about the fact that the majority of the few hours I had accumulated did not get me out of having to take classes. This was because the majority of what I had done at the four year university was primarily theory courses. Like writing papers about Florence Nightengale and such. Honestly, I still don’t like the theory part of it all.
What do I remember most about that first year there? Well, for one thing, my class was definitely a mix of traditional and non-traditional students. It gave us some mother figures, but they were usually, and very sadly, the ones who struggled the most. This was certainly not because they were lacking in intelligence, but rather that they had numerous additional responsibilities like two jobs and three kids in addition to full time school.
This is a tad apart from my nursing course, but I want to share this as well. I had to take a speech class as part of my requirement (and I think they’ve dropped that requirement now). One of the assignments was that we had to give a speech on a country that we were assigned. I don’t really remember what mine was. For some reason, I’m thinking it was Canada. In the high school I went to, sadly, the geography teacher taught us that Canada was part of the United States. What he meant was that it was part of North America. But I’m sure some of my classmates will wander out into the world banking on what he had said was the truth. But everyone in the class was totally confused when this one girl who had been given the assignment of speaking on Austria began talking about the kangaroos and the great barrier reef and crocodiles. Poor thing, it was clear she had thought that Austria was Australia. I tried to maintain my composure but was dying laughing inside. I mean, I could have clearly done the same thing, but I did happen to know the difference. I still laugh about this when I think about it!!
I finished up that first semester of the BSN program with a solid B average in my classes. I started into the second semester when to my delight, I got married and was moving. I think I secretly liked the fact that I had an “excuse” to get out of this particular nursing program. I liked the program, but really, couldn’t the instructors be any nicer than say, Satan?
Okay, so I left that program only to find out that I was NOT in fact moving as I had planned. Great. What to do now? So, I thought, can I possibly get done ANY quicker??? I applied to an Associates Degree Nursing Program where I could receive my two year RN degree. It seemed like a pretty good idea. I went to talk to an advisor who let me skip taking some kind of entrance exam that was required of the other applicants. This was because I had been accepted and successfully completed a full semester of a program with a little bit stiffer requirements than the one I was currently looking into. She also felt sorry for me that my move didn’t work out!
After a few weeks, I finally heard from the program and guess what…I got in!! I was so excited. Another journey would begin.
Why did I become a nurse? Did I have some epiphany or some incredible role model? Nope. I needed to make some money and fast. A two year nursing degree sounded good. I thought “Heck. How hard can it be to give a shot?” Yeah. That’s when I got my eyes opened.
I had previously gone through what seemed to be most all of the introductory courses that the college offered in almost every area of study. I had almost enough “hours” to graduate but NOTHING seemed to add up in any one area. Let me introject that I also have ADD (Attention deficit disorder). This didn’t help anything. I did eventually get this under control though.
I was accepted into a BSN program and began my first semester. I had no idea that they could make some of the simplest concepts so stinking difficult. It was almost like they WANTED you to mess up. (Now, having taught college nursing courses, I can understand that “some” of the teachers simply thought that was the best way to learn!)
I remember this one classmate that I had who seemed to be making rather good grades. So I decided I was going to put my pride aside and ask her how she was doing it. What was her secret. I was quite surprised by her answer. Her reply was “Well, I just find the answer that I think is right, and then choose the opposite one. That’s because when I pick the one that I really think is right, it’s always wrong.” Hmm…..such an interesting approach to this problem. I have to admit that I was not brave enough to go to that length. I figured I’d just keep taking my B’s and B-happy.
