Are you nervous about getting out in the "real world"?

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I have 2 months until I graduate and I'm starting to have mixed feelings. OMG! This is so strange because this is something I've wanted FOREVER!

I haven't worked (besides being a wife, mother and student) since June of 2001. I'm starting to get really nervous about working. No more summer days with the kids, having to work (I've ALWAYS loved working - being with other adults, etc - but now - I can't figure out my feelings). I am hoping for 3 12-hour shifts so that I can spend the summer with the kids like I've done the last few years. I know - this is the real world. I don't know why I'm feeling like this. I'm tired of being a student, but I've gotten so used to it. I'm 31-years-old and I have to grow up - AGAIN! AGHHHH!!:smackingf

Do you know how good it feels to know that I am not in this great big world all alone with these feelings?! :uhoh3: I am to graduate in May 2005 also, and have been thinking about everything that I DO NOT know. When I stop to think about all of the lab values, etc. that I am supposed to remember, my mind goes blank. The things that keep pushing me are my family and the patients. I want to help provide for my family, but I love the feeling when I can make a patient feel better, even if it is just emotionally. A lot of nurses that I have talked with during clinicals, tell me it will all work out and that I will learn 3 times as much on the job than I have in school. The encouragement is Great, but of course I am the one that has to take that first step and it is a scary one! Thanks to everyone for the support here!

Smiles ~~ Annette

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Specializes in ED.
A lot of nurses that I have talked with during clinicals, tell me it will all work out and that I will learn 3 times as much on the job than I have in school. Smiles ~~ Annette

I have been hoping that was the case. I always learn more in clinicals anyway than I do from a book. I just hope that when its my time I will get a good nurse to shadow who likes to teach :uhoh3:

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Specializes in Pediatrics.
I'm getting nervous too. Thinking about things like, how am I going to get the kids to and from day care or school, who is going to be home with them if I work certain shifts, can I count on my hubby to be home with them, can I afford a babysitter after I start.

I'm not so much worried about working cause I would love a pay check but I'm more worried about shifts and kids.

:chuckle I feel as though I could have written this comment! I have been a stay at home mom since before I was a mom (stopped working when I was 5 months pregnant with my first). That was in September 2001. I have done work at home type gigs from time to time, but never had a professional job. Even in high school and my first attempt at college I worked in the food service industry. Now I am faced with the prospect of working outside of the home on a full time basis, and it scares me. It's like: "Oh my goodness. I am a grown-up! Married, three kids, and a career! WOW!" Really. It's an eye opener. Then the other factors come in.

I don't want my kids in daycare 40+ hours a week- and I couldn't afford it anyway. My husband works odd hours, rotating shifts so I never know when he works early, late, or has off. It's frustrating just thinking about it. :stone Now I am thinking that I will work 3 twelve hour shifts, probably nights, and then take the children to daycare for the mornings only on the days after my working nights so I can sleep. Then the rates will be part time, and I should be able to afford that... :uhoh21: I am so verbose. Sorry.

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Specializes in ICU, psych, corrections.

I have moments where I wonder "why the hell am I doing this? Do I really want to be a nurse. I can't do this!!!". But I have talked to some of the RN's who graduated last May and they all told me that they felt like this too....and sometimes STILL do....LOL.

I was just offered a position in the ICU where I currently work as an Apprentice Nurse. This makes it even MORE real....sigh. So I'm working through my fear (I have nightmares about accidently killing patients, not giving correct meds, etc.) and focusing on how nice it will be when our income more than DOUBLES.....WOOHOOO!!!! Plus, no more wondering who the hell is going to watch the kids during my clinical hours (I have a 5 year old and 8 year old). It will be really nice to only have to worry about work and not school AND work!!

Melanie :p

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Specializes in LTC/Behavioral/ Hospice.

I've still got over a year yet and I've already started worrying about some of these things! I can only imagine how I will be 2 months from graduation.:chuckle I am in the same boat as many of you. I have been a SAHM for almost 12 years now. I've had a few little jobs here and there to help us out in a jam, but really, I've got nothing. I am always planning in my mind how to make my schedule work with my husbands so that we can minimize any daycare needs. It all leads to frustration right now because I have no clue what kind of job I'm going to get! :chuckle

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Specializes in L&D.
:chuckle I feel as though I could have written this comment! I have been a stay at home mom since before I was a mom (stopped working when I was 5 months pregnant with my first). That was in September 2001. I have done work at home type gigs from time to time, but never had a professional job. Even in high school and my first attempt at college I worked in the food service industry. Now I am faced with the prospect of working outside of the home on a full time basis, and it scares me. It's like: "Oh my goodness. I am a grown-up! Married, three kids, and a career! WOW!" Really. It's an eye opener. Then the other factors come in.

I don't want my kids in daycare 40+ hours a week- and I couldn't afford it anyway. My husband works odd hours, rotating shifts so I never know when he works early, late, or has off. It's frustrating just thinking about it. :stone Now I am thinking that I will work 3 twelve hour shifts, probably nights, and then take the children to daycare for the mornings only on the days after my working nights so I can sleep. Then the rates will be part time, and I should be able to afford that... :uhoh21: I am so verbose. Sorry.

I totally understand and am in a lot of ways in the same boat. My husband doesn't work odd shifts but along with his civilian job (he's an engineer) he is also in the National Guard and it is not the typical 1 weekend a month kind of thing. With all the deployments the last couple of years, he's been gone a week at a time - I believe last year and the year before he was gone 1/3 of the year. He's a paralegal in the National Guard, so when soldiers are being deployed, he has to make sure their wills and powers of attorny and other legal work are in order. This makes it difficult for me to work at all. I too plan on working 3 12-hour shifts like you and at midnight so that will be easier on my family.

Good luck to us all and hopefully we will all get the hours we're looking for!

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I'll join the club. I graduate in May also.

I was in the elevator with a couple of my classmates on our way to our clinical floors, when we all voiced how we dreaded coming to clinicals lately. Then someone mentioned that thats what we were gonna go the rest of our lives. That was scary.

Then I got to my patients room, in the SICU, and I was thankful that the nurse was in there the whole day with me. HELLO? I graduate in may, this may.

Then, I was sooo happy when 1 pm rolled around and our instructor let us go a little early (after post-conference and lunch, about 2pm.) Went home, did laundry, took a nap, went to the grocery store, started dinner, and then the lightbulb went off again (3rd time that day) the nurse I was working with was still at work. Probably without much of a break.

So how, I ask myself, am I gonna transform myself into a real nurse, who works 12, yes 12 hours a day, and has to do that on nights, weekends, holidays, and will actually be responsible for another (or 6) person's life?

I am really happy to be graduating, I just can't believe that I'm graduating, and that graduating means I have to be a nurse now......that just seems crazy.

You are not alone.

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Wow! I start a one year BSN program in June and I have read about the nervousness nurses feel right before graduation. I'm sure I will feel that too.

I graduated with a master's in public health in May 2004 and I was scared to death to enter the real world, but everything worked out fine and I moved to a city where I had no contacts.

At least it is not as hard for nurses to find jobs as it is for some people. I have a friend who has been looking for a decent job for 2 years after graduation.

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I'll join the club. I graduate in May also.

Then I got to my patients room, in the SICU, and I was thankful that the nurse was in there the whole day with me. HELLO? I graduate in may, this may.

Then, I was sooo happy when 1 pm rolled around and our instructor let us go a little early (after post-conference and lunch, about 2pm.) Went home, did laundry, took a nap, went to the grocery store, started dinner, and then the lightbulb went off again (3rd time that day) the nurse I was working with was still at work. Probably without much of a break.

So how, I ask myself, am I gonna transform myself into a real nurse, who works 12, yes 12 hours a day, and has to do that on nights, weekends, holidays, and will actually be responsible for another (or 6) person's life?

I am getting more nervous the longer this thread gets! :stone

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i'm nervous about the fact that i will have to be perfect as a nurse and i'm not a perfect person. of course i understand the need to be accurate and to know my stuff but some day i will probably make a mistake because i'm not a robot, and then i might loose my job. i guess i feel like hospitals shouldn't be quite so punitive regarding some mistakes. the way nurses are treated after they make a mistake almost sends the message that they are disposable and worthless because they're not absolutely flawless. i've heard of nurses getting fired for errors that doctors receive a slap on the wrist for. i guess that's pretty much the basis behind why i'm nervous about going out into the real world. although i think getting set up with a good orientation program will probably help a lot.

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I'll join the club. I graduate in May also.

I was in the elevator with a couple of my classmates on our way to our clinical floors, when we all voiced how we dreaded coming to clinicals lately. Then someone mentioned that thats what we were gonna go the rest of our lives. That was scary.

Then I got to my patients room, in the SICU, and I was thankful that the nurse was in there the whole day with me. HELLO? I graduate in may, this may.

Then, I was sooo happy when 1 pm rolled around and our instructor let us go a little early (after post-conference and lunch, about 2pm.) Went home, did laundry, took a nap, went to the grocery store, started dinner, and then the lightbulb went off again (3rd time that day) the nurse I was working with was still at work. Probably without much of a break.

So how, I ask myself, am I gonna transform myself into a real nurse, who works 12, yes 12 hours a day, and has to do that on nights, weekends, holidays, and will actually be responsible for another (or 6) person's life?

I am really happy to be graduating, I just can't believe that I'm graduating, and that graduating means I have to be a nurse now......that just seems crazy.

You are not alone.

I think I could have written that myself. I too, dread clinicals, and I think to myself if I hate this, how am I going to like being a NURSE?! When the nurse stays side by side with me all day and guides me through everything, THAT'S when I enjoy clinical. You stick me in a room by myself and I feel dumbfounded. And I graduate in MAY! I should be fairly independent. I have no confidence. I honestly don't know how I'm going to make it. It scares me to death. :uhoh21:

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

Okay, bonjovi girl and here with me! I am having the EXACT SAME feelings as you! I am scared out of my mind, almost literally. I want a job- but I still want the security of clinicals with a nurse helping me out the whole time! I guess you can't stay completely "safe" forever- gotta get kicked out of the "womb" sometime! But I feel very scared when I think of being responsible for patients on my own! I've heard so much about how hard it is being a new grad nurse and how so many people leave their job or quit nursing altogether in the first year. (Okay... I guess I'm NOT really helping!) But I am really nervous and scared. Besides the fact that I will be living in a big city on my own where I will know no one, in an apartment by myself for the first time... it will be so lonely!

OK enough sob story... :rolleyes:

Please someone who has been through this... come on over and give us a little reassurance/support/??? :uhoh21: Thank you... you are awesome.

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