entrance essay help

[ashleyrb123]

so this nursing school i am applying to we have to write a short essay about why we chose to become a nuse well my story is personal but i think its speas about who i am as a perosn i just dont want it to be too personal or overwhelming and im also at a loss on if there are any other corrections to be made. any help is appreciated :)

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My decision to pursue an educational and career path in nursing stems from my early teenage years. I have always taken care of sick animals, elderly neighbors, and babysit children around the neighborhood. Then when I was sixteen my joy for caring for others blossomed into a full-blown passion and I developed the need to and the want to help everyone I could. My mother raised me and my younger sister with some help from my grandmother. My grandmother played a very big role in my life growing up, so naturally when she was diagnosed with cancer it turned our whole world upside down. My mother decided then that she would come to live with us and she and I would share a room. Some months down the road as my grandmother started to deteriorate my mother hired a nurse to come out the house in the afternoons to help look after her. I looked forward to these afternoons and learning everything that i could from the nurse. I admired her because she was always so gentle and kind to my grandmother.

About a year into my grandmother's cancer treatment plan she decided to stop all the treatments and focus on making her time left with us enjoyable. During this time my mother was gone an awful lot working two and sometimes three jobs to pay for the extensive medical bills we had accrued, so this left me a lot of time with my grandmother. Since my mother had was gone a lot it was harder for her to look after my grandmother properly; it was then that we decided that I would finish high school from home online to take on the role of my grandmother's caregiver.

Though there were times we struggled and we had to make plenty of adjustments, we grew closer. When I was just shy of eighteen I enrolled into certified nursing assistant classes so I could learn how to take care of my grandmother more efficiently. My grandmother was my rock to lean on, my study partner, and greatest encourager through this time. A week after I received my certification my grandmother was then placed on comfort care measures. A few short days later she passed away and I felt like I had lost my whole world. Her last words to me were, " You have a good kind heart love don't ever hide it away."

I began to work at a local long-term care facility not long after loosing her and this helped me grieve. I quickly began to love each resident like family and looked forward to arriving at work each day. A couple of years later I transitioned over to working at the hospital while attending school for medical assisting. When I completed my degree I was happy for a short time, but then it felt like something was missing from my life. That's when I realized I missed giving bedside care. So I decided to go back to working as a certified nursing assistant.

During these last few years I have set my mind and heart on a path that I believe leads me to a future in nursing. Becoming a nurse would allow me to continue caring for others while advancing my education. I also believe that nursing gives me a chance to honor my grandmothers memory and bringing me closer to her spiritually. I aspire to keep furthering my education and become a nurse practitioner with a specialization in oncology. I believe that my exposure and experiences thus far have helped me prepare for my future as a nurse.

[idkmybffjill]

My first thought is that there's too much focus on the story and not enough on you. I like the structure. I think it's good to be able to use your story as a framing for talking about your passions, strengths, and experiences, but I think you got caught up in explaining all the details of the story rather than focusing more on you and convincing them you will make a good nurse (while telling them why you want to be one). Some of the details of the story that don't matter to our understanding can be cut out while others can be explained more concisely. For instance, from "When I was sixteen..." to "..she and I would share a room," you could shorten the story by saying something like: "When I was sixteen, my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer. It turned my whole world upside down, especially because my grandmother helped raise me and my sister and played a big role in my life growing up. Naturally, my mother had her come live with us. This is when my joy for caring for others blossomed into a full-blown passion." [Though I might temper the "joy" portion of this because with it being applying to your grandmother, it feels a little inappropriate?] Or instead of giving so much details on why your mother was working so much, etc, you can just say since your mother was gone ___ many hours a week working, you started taking your high school courses online to become your grandmother's caregiver.

All that gives you more time to talk about YOU and what YOU did. Speak more about your interactions with the nurse. Did she teach you things? Did she teach you about your grandmother's medications? What were your thoughts on nursing because of her? What specifically did you enjoy? Then give more details about you caring for your grandmother later on, what you did, etc. You can still tell it in more of a story-format. Maybe commentary on providing dignity in death if it fits. Frame it more as why you've wanted to be a nurse (you enjoyed the medical aspect, etc), but also make sure some of it can double as what experiences you've had that will make you a better candidate than someone else.

You also want to watch out for being too causal in your language--things like "gone an awful lot."