All my life I just knew I wanted to be a nurse. I graduated high school in 2005 and right away I chose Pre-Nursing as my college major. After fooling around and flunking a few classes my freshman year, I finally decided to get serious and buckle down. By then my GPA was in the dumbs (1.48) so I decided to finish all my nursing pre-reqs in hopes to raise my GPA into an acceptable range to start applying to nursing school. After my fair share of "denial" letters I finally got accepted into a 2yr Associates program (it was better than nothing). First semester went better than expected, I finished with a 3.57GPA overall and I was chosen as the VP of my graduating class!! Now I'm in my second semester doing Med/Surg+Psych combined and I don't know what the heck happened to me. I have NO motivation whatsoever. I barely study, I drag myself to school everyday just to sign the attendance sheet, I hate clinicals and I'm doing more memorizing than reading for understand, which we all know is pointless when it comes to nursing school. And when I actually did put forth effort to study for my 1st exam, I got a 76% (failed by 1 question). I keep telling myself it was the long 6wk winter break that has me in this rut but I just don't know. I cant really talk to anyone about how I'm feeling because all my family and friends have been rooting for me all these years and would be sooo disappointed if I shared this with them. Especially my mother who thinks I have a serious problem following things through till the very end. I just don't know....I want a good job, I want to make decent money, have a sense of security and live a happy/fullfilling life but, Do I have to be a nurse to achieve that? I've worked in the medical field pretty much ever since I was able to work. I've been a unit secretary at a local hospital for the past 5years. I love my job but it cant pay the bills (especially when I move out and start a family). Now, approaching age 27, I'm wondering who I really am and most importantly who I want to be. Where do I envision myself in the future? I know nursing opens up a lot of different pathways that go way beyond the clinical setting, but you still have to go through all that grueling schoolwork and state boards. And then a BSN program :-(. In terms of longevity I just don't see myself happy in this career path at all. Thing is, it has always been nursing for me, so I never seriously considered other possible career paths. I also don't feel like being in school for the rest of my life, I already wasted so much time. I love to lend a helping hand, put a smile on people's face, organize, plan and be creative but there's no job title for that. I don't know I just need help, advice, words of encouragement before I make a decision that can alter the rest of my life. HELP ME PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!
