First day of nursing School *unleashed* post yours

[9livesRN]

Well, I would like to share my first day of nursing school experience.

It all started last night when i could not go to sleep, then I woke up at 4 am, because I was so excited and anxiety had taken over! Well I got up, took a shower, took care of the dogs, and even ironed my uniform.

I ended up leaving home at 6 am, for the 1 hour commute, since I was afraid that I would be caught in the middle of traffic.

I ended up at school at 7 am, I sat in my car, had my coffee, and at 730 people started showing up. Well I found out that classes would not start until 9 on the first day, since they had people lost on the buildings, trying to find the classrooms, teachers coming back gathering loads of stuff, from a side to another, and finally classes started. It was funny to see all my peeps from pre-reqs there in addition to some other new faces!

It all started by our Pharmacology teacher (we have pharm all day long on Mondays) asking us to write a paragraph on:

- Why nursing?

- Semester goal

- 3 year goal

After we wrote that, she made us one by one, read it to the class, as an introduction! Well, I heard maybe half of the people with the CRNA goal, the other half with money/or NP goal, LOL hopefully they'll get there!

Then she started the syllabus, in which:

• 50% are tests
  
• 10% presentation
  
• 10% group work, participation
  
• 5% post test
  
• 25% finals.
  

Which is not bad. My first impression is that Our teacher is a nice Lady, she has been a NP for 12 years, and on still works 2 days a week on her private practice, which I thought was a plus, since she is updated on things.

Well, then lecture started, and we went over the nursing process, and then the 7 rights, and then we covered chapters 1 and 2 of the book (keep in mind 5 hour lecture LOL) the funny thing is: We have to know chapters 1-9 by next Monday!!! For our first test, she will give us multiple choices only, and will allow us to use a 4X6 flashcard, where we can write stuff on one side, and hand it to her, then she will return it to us on the first test day, keep in mind that we have 5 tests. OMG that is a lot of info, even though I had answered the questions already on the study guide...

She is really nice to us, always asking if it is all clear, anymore questions! I like her I guess! (Although you know... some people on the break room already started venting... blah)

Then she was telling us that we will have clinicals starting on the end of the month, so we can learn how to talk to our patients, practice some basic skills. (For the first 3 weeks we have Thursday and Fridays just for skills!!! 10 hours a week!).

She said that we will not do any invasive skill on ourselves, meaning no drawing each others blood, or giving any sort of injection. How the hell am I going to learn??? How did you guys learn this??? It makes me wonder, since I have no previous experience with that other than a few lovenox abdominal shots.

She said that in May we will start giving IM, IV, Sq, and all that good stuff. (But then again with no previous human attempts! She said that if we were to do it among ourselves, somewhere else... Whatever! But not in class!)

So it was exciting today, lots of information, and homework! Can't wait for tomorrow (but I am ok, anxiety level is down now).

We have fundamentals ALLLLLL day tomorrow, starting at 8-2pm

So, bottom line, so far I am very happy with everything, the nursing staff seems amazing so far (have dealt with them since pre-reqs) and all my classmates are cool (of course, there is the sleepy one, the parrot one, the repetitive one, the fancy girls, the CNA knows it all's, but they are ok so far!)

Comments are welcome!

Those who start(started) soon please post your experience here! Lets make this thread last all the way through our graduation!!!

[SingDanceRunLife]

We had our intro to the clinical learning lab, 3 hours of NSG 101A (fundamentals), and pharm. It was 8-12 then 1:15-2:15. It was long, but not bad. That'll be a pretty standard Monday for me with the one difference being we won't have any lab, just class 8-12 and class 1:15-2:15.

We also got our lab kits (steth, BP cuff, penlight, scissors).

[starmickey03, MSN, RN]

Today was the first day of my Foundations class. Not much went on...we went over the syllabus, asked questions we had regarding clinical, went over the prioritization of care, and a couple other things. Nothing major though.

Tomorrow is my first clinical day, although its really just going to be a hospital orientation. I also found out that I'll be on the med-surge floor for clinicals this semester.

[2bnurseforce1]

Today was my 2nd day of Maternal/Newborn nursing class. So far is really interesting, just a lot of terms at the moment, but soon we will be getting into the fun stuff. My next class of Psych starts in October and that will be the start of my second year. Good luck everyone its back to studying for me.

[cmonkey]

We went over syllabi (which were wrong for two classes, great start), checked out the skillz lab, lunch, home. Not much to speak of. More syllabi tomorrow, and an actual class session, I think we're brushing up on BPs and physical assessments.

[Unknown member]

hello all!

I've been following this site for a few months now and I'm happy to say I survived my first week of nursing school! Before school started, I was extremely anxious and nervous. After the first week, I'm a little bit more relaxed but now I'm just stressed about my first test on Sept. 20th consisting of 32 CHAPTERS! I've kept up with the reading and study guides but it still seems like SOO much information to be on one test. I am very worried because I don't want a bad grade to start with...as for my actual first week, it went well. I met alot of nice people and my teachers seem awesome! I've already done bed baths, making beds, oral care, transferring patients, handwashing, gloves, etc. I've learned alot and it's been fun! I've read ALOT and spent alot of time outside of the classroom on nursing work. We've started the nursing process and I'll be at my clinical site on Wednesday doing orientation at the hospital. I'm excited about getting assigned my first patient next week!

[guiltysins]

Okay so I had my first day of nursing school was today! Finally! The only class I had today was my nursing fundamentals skills lab. I wasn't sure what we were going to do because none of us have had lecture yet but we jumped right into work. We had a little introduction period, everyone had different reasons as to why they wanted to do nursing. Then the professor went over her own educational path. One of the things I love about it is that she's still a nurse! She works the night shift (she's actually working tonight lol) and she's in school for her doctorate.

She then went over what was in our assigned reading briefly and described what nursing is. We went over asepsis and infection prevention. We then watched video demonstrations of handwashing, putting and taking off sterile gloves, facial masks and gowns, using a pulse oximeter and administering oxygen using the mask and nasal cannula. We then had to demonstrate these things ourselves. For the handwashing we were given an orange "germ" to rub on our hands. We then had to properly wash it off. How did she make sure we washed it correctly? She turned the lights off and used an ultraviolet black light! LOL a lot of us were NOT expecting that. I had a little problem putting on sterile gloves with the cuffs because I couldn't get my hand to get in them without somehow touching the outside of it.

It was still pretty cool. Some things on the video made us nervous, like suctioning someone's nose after they've been on oxygen a while but I think it's normal to be nervous about hurting someone. My classmates are all great, 13 other females and one male (there are a good number of males in my program, my class just happened to have only one). We've already taken numbers from one another, especially the ones I have other classes with.

I have fundamentals lecture and then pharmacology after that tomorrow so we'll what happens!

[yesitslaura]

Finally my FIRST Day! And SHEW what a relief! They had us scared stiff at orientation but today wasnt all that bad. Nice to be able to see my syllabus! Our class started with 60 but were down to 50 already. (4 males) At my school a lot of people sign up for stuff just to get the financial aid money, so thats my only guess of where they all went. Or maybe they were scared by orientation, too lol.

We had a lecture for only about 2 hours, spent a lot of the time doing junk that in my opinion probably should have been covered at orientation. A spokesperson for the evolve website came in to promote their wares and talked for nearly 2 hours.. yawn.

We had to get in frontof everyone and talk about ourselves like 3 times. Its so awkward for me, im a private person. But at least I wasnt the only one, most of us were blushing as we talked! Prof. said any of us that are shy, wont be by the end of the quarter!

The notes were fabulous, our teachers are such sweethearts, they even pause to let you finish writing so youre not alway scrambling to keep up. I havent had assesment class yet, but fundamental is giving an exam every 2 weeks, average of 6 chapters per exam. I think (hope) i can handle that!

Most of the students seemed pretty nice, but with some of them its easy to spot the ones to stay away from. I was looking forward to finally being surrounded by students that were dedicated. But I dont know, we had to do a little project and turn it in the first day (We had 4 weeks to work on it!) and many of the students were doing it there, right before class. Oh well, (nursing) friends or no friends, I will get through this!

Over all I had a great impression. Everyone talks like the instructors are out to get you but they seemed wonderful to me! Soon I will have my first clinical day, and I am sooo happy they let us work on dummys first! Practice makes perfect. Oh, and the phrase "proper hand hygiene" was said about 50 million times, lol.

[starmickey03, MSN, RN]

Okay, so my first day was August 23rd and it started off really slow (I already posted about that day), but it picked up QUICKLY! I swear my head has been spinning from all the assigned readings but so far I have read every chapter and taken notes as I read. I had my first Foundations exam today and got a 92%. Initially I had an 84% but the instructor contradicted herself on a few of the questions so she ended up giving points for two answers rather than one. That made me so happy! This exam score gave me the motivation to not start slacking (lets just hope I can keep it).

Oh and Tuesday at clinical was the first day we actually got to interact with a patient. All we had to do was obtain a health history from them but I was super nervous. But once I went in I was fine. I guess false confidence can go a LONG way because my patient had no idea that I was as terrified as I was, lol.

[living on faith]

I am just a nurse "wanna-be" as I finish my prerequs this semester before applying and I loved.... hearing all of this! I cracked up laughing that you left the house at 6 am because I will (hopefully) do that too :) Please keep posting your experiences so I can have a glimpse in to your daily lives. Thank you and I wish you the very best from Michigan...

[christyness, BSN]

This is the journal entry I wrote on that day:

"August 23, 2010 - First Day of Nursing School

Woke up early - 7:30 or so, and I was very sleepy still. I've had a lot of anxiety about this day, but this morning it was gone. I think I was numb.

Had to turn in a signed policies form/photo release, but couldn't print it. Tried to run by library on the way to class, but traffic was horrible.

Parking on campus was also horrible, so I didn't even bother - I parked in the overflow parking lot and hiked 15 minutes to class.

Upon finding a seat, the man beside me offered me a copy of the form I needed. He had printed extras. Very nice of him. His name is ______, and he happens to also be in my class and lab team.

First lecture on Nursing History. Other than that, a LOT of talking about schedules, policies, organization of the program, and a lot of working bugs out.

After school went up to (restaurant where I work) and had a much-deserved glass of wine.

Later, went out to (local restaurant) w/(roommate) this evening. Was incredible.

All in all a long, confusing, but much-anticipated and exciting day.

Tired. Bye."

LOL. Yeah, little did I know I would be signing many entries the same way - "Tired. Bye."

I can also recall having that awkward feeling upon walking into a room of 140 strangers - you know, wondering if they'll like you, wondering if you'll make friends quickly, etc. - but then I reminded myself that these are nursing students, which means they're hard-working nose-in-the-books geeks just like me :)

[ruaalien2]

my lj after the first 2 days...

death & dying: . i had a blast in this class...which part of me feels is wrong but she's that good of a teacher. and it was a 9am class on top of it! she's one of two professors that i'll take anytime during the day, even that early in the morning. the class topic is going to be rough, but i like how it's a good mix of students and ages...we have a senior citizen in the class who already has her masters, etc and is just taking classes (she has 120 credits already at my school...a community college!) down to some students that are younger then me, so it's nice. i was even okay mentioning marilyn & z for a bit, which is hard for me so that says a lot. we are reading tuesdays with morrie. i've seen the movie but never got around to reading the book. i just brought it in ebook format. i also need to look to double check the other book we are reading (i don't remember the name off hand) if i can get in an e-book format. we have a field trip we need to take to a funeral home or cemetary, if not both and get all the information on prices, what to do if you need to bury a loved one, etc. i really don't know if i can handle it, but i want to go out to where my family is buried. we will have 3 papers, including that one that are 3 pages each, then we have the midterm, final and we need to create and do some sort of ritual remembering a big event (ex: 9/11). i'm hoping for that group wise i can get in with the senior citizen, j, who is also jewish and we can convince our grou pt odo the holocuast, but we will see. i'm looking forward to this class next week! i know it's gonna get tougher, but that's okay.

nursing fundementals: the one that most of you want to hear about. the class is three clinical groups together, all the night students. it's 2-3 professors, depending if you have your clinical professor as your lab professor or not. lecture is prof k. i said after orentation that i liked her a lot, and after our first lecture, i'm sure that i do. she has a great sense of humor, teaches what needs to be taught while still making it fun. do i think we learned a lot yesterday? it was the first day of class, but yeah. it's going to be intresting to see how the class goes. it's going to get suepr tough i'm sure but i'm glad that i got the first day over with. prof. s is the lab professor and she's great also. great sense of humor, she brings in snacks to help keep us awake (sadly they weren't working yesterday!). she said straight off the first day is the most boring cus there are a ton of videos to watch...and she wasn't joking. i don't think anyone really paid attention to the last 3-4 videos. we got out late cus of them. *sigh* when we went back to the lab, we went over handwashing and putting on/removing ppe gear correctly. nothing i didn't already know how to do, but it was good to go over it. today i get to meet my clinical professor, professor b. but after yesterday i'm really looking forwad to it. the one thing that scares me is with 30 students, there are at least 7 that are repeating the class. yikes! 2 of them are in my clinical group.

normally tuesday is clincial but the first two weeks it's on campus. my clinical site, a nursing home, is right next door to school anyway. and they provide free parking, yay!

prof s, our lab professor, were joined by the other two clincal professors. mine is prof b. she seems really....honestly...i'm really not sure. she was the quiet one out of the three. she seems nice but i'm just not totally sure of that yet.

it was a bunch of lecture, a video and then a 45 min dinner break. then more lecture and we got to go into the lab for the last hour and a half to learn how to take blood pressure and to listen to heart sounds. i feel bad, one of the guys in my clinical group got sent home cus he bp was super high.

there was a lot covered in lecture. i need to print out the powerpoints but i want to do it from school because there is a lot. that will have to wait till next monday night, i like printing it out when no one is there so they will stay in order. then i need to re-write all my notes from last night and go ahead and start making index cards.

i've always had problems finding a pulse, and last night was no exception. i'm really going to have to improve on that asap. i have a feeling i'm going to be spending a lot of time learning how to take blood pressure. i don't always hear it. jenn said she'd help me out, and dave said that he is going to find out if t or g have an extra blood pressure cuff...otherwise i'll just buy one. i do know that i did get it close to what the lab girl got on faina so maybe i'm not as bad as i thought?

we have to do a full physical assesment on each other. i'm so happy that faina and i are together in clinical, we are using each other. i think it makes it a bit easier that we are comfortable with each other! i'm so nervous about it. i'm hoping we have the chance to meet up before it's due next tuesday. probably do it tuesday afternoon before class.

i really wonder how i'm supposed to learn and remember all this stuff. i know i will and i know it's just a lot of studying and reading, and that index cards will help. i just have to remind myself to breathe and do it one day at a time and i can get through it. i know i can. and having an amazing support system really does help!

-----------

i found out for sure last night there are 13 people repeating. if not more, i may have miscounted. that's how they split us up into groups for taking turns taking blood pressure and listening to heart sounds. 4 or 5 of them are in my clinical group. yikes! this makes me super nervous.

[Nurse4lifeNC]

Tomorrow is my first day. I am a little nervous but excited for my future. I will let everyone here know how it went and what I encountered. I have been told I will have it a little easier. I transfered to NC from FL and all of my course work is done. Now going into my clinicals (NUR 111). So I will not be up studying for an anatomy or micro exam then clinicals, whew! Good luck to everyone starting!