In too deep...now what?

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jul 9, 2012

you're just new at it. you feel this way because this is not like anything you ever did before, you are afraid it will be a monumental waste of time and energy, and you're beginning to stop trying too hard because you're not sure you care enough to try harder.

welcome to nursing school. it gets better. really, it does. (maybe we should make a video about that like they did for the gay kids.) like every other skill or ability in life, not everyone learns it at the same pace or with the same facility. realistically, they teach this stuff to 19-year-olds with no clue about life in general, and you have a huge leg up on them there.

it is true that there are a load of interesting opportunities out here and that you may never need to do bedside care to still be a really good nurse (heresy for a lot of folks, i know, but there are lots of us nurses doing nursing who left bedside care behind a good long time ago). nursing school will give you an interesting skill mix that can open a lot of great doors, especially if you have a bit more maturity on ya.

never mind the folks who say the accelerated program is a waste. they're wrong. they just don't know what kind of nurse you'll end up being. you don't either. if i were you i'd stick it out and spend time with people who really support you for you, and ditch the rest of them. the downer professor will be out of your life in the not too distant future...absorb, rebound, move on.

so what if you spend some time doing stuff you're not crazy about to get to a better place? every profession has an equivalent. wanna be a top gun? boot camp. wanna teach kindergarteners? student teaching, bleah. wanna run the department of public works? clean storm drains. this isn't so bad in comparison, and time will pass. you'll be thirty (or whatever) anyway. one foot in front of the other, eyes on the prize, hang in. :hug:

Stephalump · Jul 9, 2012

should i just accept the fact that nursing school will likely continue to make the next year or so a living hell for me, and keep hoping that it'll all pay off someday?

yes. we're all going through it. two year programs move quickly and suck the life out of you, so you can be certain 1 year programs will be more tough. i have heard, though, that once you get further in you get used to it and it comes a bit easier. we shall see.

however, i don't know how much it'll pay off if you actually do not want to be a nurse. new grads leave the field all the time. so maybe the answer is "no." i'm not sure :)

should i at least take comfort in the fact that i really do care about people, and that i'd probably still make a better nurse than the ones who treat it like any other job?

if it gets you, through, why not. however, a career is long-term. you need to be there for you and because you like the work. once you've invested all of your time and resources into nursing, you may not be "stuck," but you kind of are if you need to do things like pay the bills and whatnot.

am i an idiot for signing up for an accelerated program? are these programs really that bad?

no, you're not an idiot. and yes. i've encountered mixed feelings about accelerated programs from people i've spoken to. some think you do most of your learning after graduation so it doesn't really matter, and some are hesitant to hire new grads from those programs because it's too much too fast.

are there really any alternative nursing careers out there for a brand-new nurse? was i misled by everyone who told me about such a wide range of options upon finishing nursing school, or is my lab professor just being a debbie downer to scare us and root out all the people who shouldn't be doing this?

there are alternative nursing careers, but not so much for new grads, from what i can tell. we all have to pay our dues...especially in this bad economy. we're lucky if we can even get a hospital job right off the bat, forget jobs that typically have always required experience. take look at job postings at hospitals around your area. i would love to be a case worker at our local cancer center, but they want 5 years bedside experience. and so go the rest of the non-bedside roles i'd love to have.

i say finish this semester and do another - if it doesn't end up suiting you then, reassess where you are. i think it's tough for everyone, but some people just don't want to be nurses and don't realize it until they're already in school. i can't tell if that's you or not, but if so, there's no shame in it. just how it goes sometimes.

best of luck to ya!

johnny depp23 · Jul 10, 2012

You can get a job in any of those fields you want; the catch, however, is you will probably have to move in order to get one of those jobs. And who cares you if you're making low 80s on your test!? That's still passing, buddy.

DizzyLizzyNurse · Jul 10, 2012

hi everyone,

i'm a first-semester nursing student in a fairly new accelerated bsn program, and i'm already starting to regret ever getting myself into this.

we all regret it while we're in school lol.

backstory: i graduated from college with a 4.0 and a "useless" degree five years ago. it never led anywhere, so in 2010 some friends and family started to push me toward nursing. the thought of entering the medical field never really crossed my mind, but it seemed like a good option so i figured i'd give it a try. i signed up to take the prerequisite courses (a&p, micro, patho, genetics, psych, stats, nutrition, a year of chem, etc) and earned high a's in every class despite my limited science background and heavy courseloads. i then applied for an accelerated program at a local university that seemed right for me: it was designed for students who already have college degrees but little/no experience in the field and want to change careers quickly. i wasn't intimidated by the amount of studying involved at all, having survived six years of college already. my prereq professors all expressed full confidence in my ability to succeed in nursing.

but i'm not even too far into this program yet, and already i'm considering dropping out.

for one, my gpa is going to suck at the end of this semester. i study for about 4 hours a day, feel confident about the material, and then get low 80s on my tests. other students are running into this same problem as well. considering we have to get at least a c+ for the classes to count, this feels dangerously close to failing. having all of these important courses crammed into a few weeks (or sometimes even a few days!) doesn't allow much time to use my study skills that proved to be effective in all of my other college classes. we're often tested on things we just learned a day or two prior, and some of the professors will skip over key concepts in the lectures due to time constraints. a lot of us in the program feel that we have no other choice but to pull all-nighters and cram. i barely have time to take care of myself, i never go out and have fun, and my relationships with family and friends have been strained since the program started. several nurses i've spoken to have said that my accelerated program is a "joke" or that it will leave us grossly underprepared for real nursing, and based on how quickly we fly through difficult material, i can understand why that might be the case.

i never knew anyone who got a's in nursing...really. nursing school is about critical thinking, keeping you on your toes, and weeding out people who can't take a high stress environment. you can't memorize the answers. i was on the dean's list until i hit the nursing classes...then it was c's and b-'s for me. i did a 2 year program and i can only imagine how a 1 year program would be. i used to say good bye to my friends and family at the beginning of the semester and then live it up on breaks. i was actually engaged when i started....didn't get married and i am single now.

another thing that worries me is the clinical experience. my professor is pretty good overall, and i get the impression that she is trying her best to help. but i feel absolutely incompetent in a hospital setting. i'm terrified of talking to patients, and my anxiety makes them anxious too. i'm very introverted and find a lot of this interaction to be really stressful and difficult for me. this is something i knew i'd have to deal with eventually, so i knew i'd have to work hard and do the best i could. but at the same time, i was hoping that this would help me get out of my "shell" a lot sooner. it hasn't. i'm the only person in my clinical group (8 students) that is still so nervous and uncomfortable and clumsy in the hospital. that makes it even more intimidating. even the other shy people in my class still somehow excel at patient interaction and get complimented all the time, but i haven't really gotten any positive feedback from my professor at all since i started.

this is true for just about everyone. the only advice i can give you is to fake it til you make it. i bet everyone is still nervous; maybe they are better at hiding it than you.

and yeah, i've expressed these concerns as best as i could to others, and i've already gotten all the condescending "if you don't feel comfortable taking care of patients, then why the hell are you in nursing?" remarks. but what really made me interested in nursing as a career is how many options there are for rns that don't involve acute care in hospitals. as i researched entering the field i heard about opportunities in informatics, research, holistic/preventive, community health, etc...all which interest me a lot more than bedside nursing. it wasn't until a week ago that my lab professor broke the news to me that new nurses almost never get those jobs, and that one would need many years of bedside experience and/or a master's degree to be considered for the kind of career path i'm interested in. i sure wish i knew that sooner! realistically, i can probably get through clinicals and graduate if i suck it up, put my mind to it, and try my absolute best. but i'm still afraid that i'll be working in a hospital doing the bedside thing with no end in sight after i graduate, being too inexperienced for a position i'm more interested in and too broke to go for a higher degree. i can't imagine my gpa after nursing school will make me an attractive candidate for a master's program either.

this is true. even now new grads are having a hard time even getting their experience being hired at a hospital. many are taking jobs they don't want to get experience so they can do their dream job. that's what i'm doing!

don't worry; i'm not one of those nursing students who whines about how there's "no point" in learning half the skills we work on. and having been a patient several times, i really do appreciate the hard work and support from nurses. i genuinely care about patients and want to do my best to make sure their health care experience is as good as it can be. it's just that i've come to realize that i suck at it.

most of your learning will happen on the job; not at school. the school's job is to get you to pass the nclex and be a very general practitioner. i am at my first hospital job and by the time i am done, i will have had 9 weeks of orientation. i was an rn in ltc for 9 months before that; and an lpn for 7 years before that, and even a cna before that. there is a lot to the job you will learn when you get hired and while you are working. when i *hopefully* make it into l&d i will go through even more training. it is common to be overwhelmed. a lot of lay people have no idea everything we're expected to know and how complicated our job really is and school is a wake up call.

so what do i do, and who do i believe?

should i just accept the fact that nursing school will likely continue to make the next year or so a living hell for me, and keep hoping that it'll all pay off someday?

should i at least take comfort in the fact that i really do care about people, and that i'd probably still make a better nurse than the ones who treat it like any other job?

am i an idiot for signing up for an accelerated program? are these programs really that bad?

are there really any alternative nursing careers out there for a brand-new nurse? was i misled by everyone who told me about such a wide range of options upon finishing nursing school, or is my lab professor just being a debbie downer to scare us and root out all the people who shouldn't be doing this?

sounds like your teacher is being realistic to me. you have to put in your dues at just about any career. a lot of people like hospital nursing; some consider it putting in their dues. and btw a lot of people (like me, for instance) consider nursing just a job. that doesn't mean they aren't good at nursing.

sorry for the long, winding post. i've just been confused and scared and unsure if this whole career path is right for me. any help/advice will be very much welcome!

this is why i think people should get some kind of health care experience before they go to nursing school. anyway you can take a break and volunteer or work as a cna or pca or something so you see what goes on day to day? then you can decide if you truly want to be a nurse. clinicals won't give you a realistic idea of day to day nursing. good luck with what you decide!!