Was nursing school fun?

Nursing Students Male Students

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I start NS next semester, and as guy, I don't know what to expect. I understand that nursing school is going to be very stressful but I want to know how people truly thought about it? Was it more "fun" than say pre-req classes like anatomy/microbiology, or even a CNA class (because I enjoyed my CNA class clinicals)? How are clinicals? are they even more stressful than lecture, are there fun moments in clinicals?

Specializes in Admin, ER, ICU, Med-Surg.

I can honestly say that I loved nursing school. I had a ton of fun. Being with the same group of people for two years and getting to know everyone made it interesting. It was really sad to say goodbye to everyone when we graduated. We continue to talk frequently and I graduated 3 years ago. Nursing school was never "hard" but it was time consuming. I think I was lucky, I had some awesome instructors, classroom and clincals. I can honestly say I never had a "bad" instructor.

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I (me) have found nursing school to be five parts B.S., three parts busy work, and two parts interesting. Fun? Never. I can honestly say that I have done nothing fun. ...

^ I second that assessment. I drop in here once in a while to see how nursing school affects men, since I worked in a "male" profession before trying nursing. Nursing school was pure misery for me, and I'm currently out of it and debating whether or not I want to try another school. I'm female, and I tried to "convert" to nursing after years of working in science and technology. (With my background and job experience, let's just say I had no transferable skills except I can do pharma calcs without ever being taught. That is the sole skill that I bought to nursing school, hehe.) Lots of the nursing stuff was boring. I think working as a floor nurse day in and day out might be too confining. I noticed right off the bat that being a woman in a woman's profession was going to set me up for a lot of being taken for granted, and disrespect, and being treated as a servant, so I am not certain that I want to stick with nursing. I also noticed that nursing seems to be fixated on whether or not you are "the right kind of person" for the job, and uptight about morality, and spirituality, and just kind of lacks diversity. I'm white, middle class, tattoo-less, college-educated, but the nursing profession just seems stodgy and uptight to me. Kind of also seems to have a chip due to being stuck in a subordinate role, or something.

I think I'd have been better off going with a BSRN college degree program, but I picked a diploma school that (I believed) offered more clinical time. I absolutely hated the way this school taught! They ran their own "integrated" curriculum structured around using their own hospital facilities, not around making a sensible curriculum that would facilitate learning. Fun, it was not. I don't know what other schools do, but this one made us sit through 6-8 hours of lecture, three days per week, and then do clinicals the other two. I could not stand the lectures. Just a waste of time for me, since I could have learned the same thing from the textbooks, in less time, and more thoroughly. They made lecture attendance mandatory, and only permitted you to miss maybe 10% in a term, so skipping was not an option. Pure punishment.

As a career-changer and older student, I had nothing in common with fellow students, because this was a small-town school with small-town people, most of whom were moms who were going for their first real career. Few men started in our class, and very few are still left. I think they, and I were literally "talked out of" the program. Talk, talk, talk, talk, ... Shaddup and just let me study! :uhoh3::D

I really liked surgery. I'm not Mom or Grandma, and I'm too far down the road to ever want to deal with kids, so peds and OB, I would be real happy to see get lopped off the NCLEX-RN. But, I bet that won't happen. The MDs must have thrilled to delegate all of that to the nurses, lol.

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Specializes in Emergency/Cath Lab.

I only had fun because I had a good group of people going through school with me. We did have some fun clinical days but for the most part it was a grind.

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^ I'm female, and I tried to "convert" to nursing after years of working in science and technology. (With my background and job experience, let's just say I had no transferable skills except I can do pharma calcs without ever being taught. That is the sole skill that I bought to nursing school, hehe.)

Science and technology background. If you don't mind me asking, were you an engineer?

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I'm a male student just finishing semester 3 of 4 in a BSN program. There have been fun times but has it been "fun"? NO!

I don't want to be one of those people that try to scare anyone off with my biases so i'll start off by saying I have a history of anxiety and major depression which has made school pretty miserable at times for me. Lectures have always been chill, labs (with pass-offs) and clinical can be very stressful or pretty fun, it all depends on instructors. For me, the absolute worst part has been getting stuck with an instructor who only cultivates fear and anxiety from students.

Have a previous BA and did some grad work. I've never been one to get too into my school relationships but it's a big part of what makes nursing school "fun"/less stressful/miserable. I go to school with a pretty awesome group of people. When I'm at home, studying by myself, getting super stressed, I can get pretty down. The minute I get to school and start BSing with everyone and realize (yet again) that we're all in the same boat with the same fears and anxiety, it's a HUGE relief.

If you are the kind of person who sees life as a comedy as opposed to a tragedy, and you're genuinely interested in nursing/medicine, I think you will actually find school fun. There are plenty in my program like that - I wish I were one!

Do I regret attending nursing school? It changes daily but, most likely, yes. However, it's one of those things where I believe it's about the journey and my journey keeps lending me new knowledge which, though it's hard to see at times, I believe it's slowly leading me the correct way in life.

I'm not sure if I answered any questions (or if one was really asked) but I'm trying to avoid studying - I got mad senioritis right now.

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I'm just finishing up my first semester of nursing school. I had a blast. It was genuinely fun. I enjoyed the people I was working with, students and instructors. The work wasn't half as bad as everyone made it out to be either. I don't know why everyone is so doom and gloom about nursing school. There's people in my classes who stress about everything as well. Just don't let it get to you. It's that simple.

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I agree. Fun isn't the operative word. Other words may describe it....fulfilling, frustrating, etc.

I felt as though nursing school (I graduated in 2005 from U. Missouri-St. Louis) was more about putting the students through a process to test their mettle so they don't "crack" when out in the field.

Nursing school is more about almost a "hazing" process to turn people into nurses and to make students "think like nurses". People say similar things in other disciplines (law, etc.).

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