choosing your specialty - uk nursing students

[toadflax]

Hi, it's me again!

I just wondered what any UK nursing students think about the fact that we have to choose on our application whether we want to go into Geriatric/Mental Health/Learning Disabilities/Adult Nursing/Paediatric. I thought that students would cover the same 2 years and only then be asked what specialty they wanted to get into.

I had a friend do this course (didn't pass his finals tho) 10 years ago and if I understood him correctly then you didn't decide until you'd gone through your placements. That makes so much more sense to me.

I've plumped for Learning Disabilities on my application. But it says you really have to be sure as you can't really change your mind later. Except for doing an extra year's retraining I suppose. I think I've made the right choice but only time will really tell.

However, if I decide after qualifying that I'd rather work in ER, say, what happens then? Do I need to do some extra training or what? I didn't find the CATCH booklet too helpful in that respect.

Just wondered if anyone else has found it difficult to decide so soon esp with no experience whatsoever. Also, was it different years ago? Could that be something to do with our high dropout rate now?