Nursing Application Essay Help

[Michodell]

Hello!

My name is Michelle. I'm a long time lurker and this is my first post. I plan on applying to quite a few ABSN and DE MSN programs within the next few weeks (UCSF, Vanderbilt, Samuel Merritt, Yale to name a few) and am putting together my application essay now. This essay is in response to the, "Why do you want to be a nurse?" topic.

I'm looking for any feedback I can get, good bad or indifferent. Any help is very much appreciated!!

Cerebral Palsy had rendered my patient, my friend, without the ability to speak and as such, I did much of the speaking in our time together.Though that is not to say he did not communicate, for we carried on many conversations about his excellent bowling skills, his love of Bill Nye and his insatiable desire to learn about the universe. We understood one another and I adapted to the way he communicated his needs. On a day not unlike any other day, I finished administering his medication, adjusted his hips in the wheelchair and turned on an episode of Bill Nye (which he selected himself after much back and forth between "Outer Space" and "Phases of Matter") before picking up the remainder of his lunch, chocolate pudding. I turned back to find him smiling. A smile which quickly turned into a fit of laughter as I, mock seriously asked, "What are you smiling about?"

Nothing could quite have expressed a "thank you" as readily as that smile. It was not the first nor the last time we laughed together,and each time it reinforced my desire to serve, to heal, to care. I could do nothing to cure cerebral palsy, but I could heal in the waysI was allowed; with medicine, with compassion, with attention to his individualistic needs.

We all desire kindness, good health and freedom from suffering, yet our suffering is our own and demands its own attention. To serve the welfare of others is to not only acknowledge this uniqueness but to be present in times of hardship and face the challenging moments with grace. It is with grace that I watched a 4 day old infant wrestled with alcohol withdrawals, held the hand of a dying nun as she regaled with me stories of a life caught in the delusions of dementia, and conveyed to a mother, in the throes of a manic episode, that I would be removing her child from her care. And all the while embracing the knowledge that I am fulfilling my purpose to serve yet desiring a deeper role in which to do so.

I wished to reach all of my families, clients and patients in the way I reached my friend. I wished to heal them from the inside. I wished to calm the manic episodes that tore them from a life of peace, to maintain their dignity when their bodies failed them and to guide them gently from a place of suffering to a place of rest.

Words are inexhaustibly restorative, to a mind and a body that are able to receive them. But the touch of a healing hand, to wield medical knowledge against pain and suffering, to offer a respite to those who would otherwise be distressed, is infinitesimally universal.Compassion, kindness and medical treatment need no translation. And where I have seen the limits to my training as a social worker, I see the possibilities in my role as a nurse; the ability to care for individuals on a biopsychosocial plane.

[idkmybffjill]

If you are currently attending a college and it has a writing lab (or a writing tutor), I'd recommend taking it there for a grammar check. I see several grammatical errors (a few sentence fragments, missing commas, etc). It's nothing huge that makes it unreadable, but you want everything to be as perfect as possible. One error I'll point out is that you are using semicolons where you should be using colons. (Explanation: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/semi-colons-colons-and-dashes/) Also, make sure you check over the essay for missing spaces. I see two instances at least.

Otherwise, I think it's overall a good essay and isn't a super typical format, which will help it stand out. I wouldn't change the topic or the basic information you give.

I would say you should mention you are a social worker well before the end, as I spent some of my attention while reading wondering what type of job or what you were doing to have all these different experiences. I think knowing you were/are a social worker will help give it more context and ground it a bit more.

Finally, two nit-picky phasing issues:

1. "We all desire kindness, good health and freedom from suffering, yet our suffering is our own and demands its own attention." This sentence sounds like you are saying we all desire freedom from suffering but we get suffering anyway and it demands our attention, taking our attention away from other things. I didn't get that you were saying that each person's suffering demands a unique approach until the next sentence. Part of that is the contrast between wanting health and freedom from suffering and the next part. If you are just speaking of the uniqueness of each person's suffering, I don't think that first part of the sentence adds anything and just muddles the meaning. I would probably say something like, "Every person's suffering is his or her own, and it demands its own approach and type of attention."

2. "...held the hand of a dying nun as she regaled with me stories of a life caught in the delusions of dementia..." So she told you stories of her being caught in the delusions of dementia or of her life in general? If the former, then keep everything but switch the "with" and "me" (as you regale, or tell, stories to people, not with them). If the latter, then I'd rephrase.