nursing school vs nursing job

allnurses Guide · Dec 5, 2014

No, nursing in the real world is not the same as school; yes you have a preceptor and all, but you are responsible for yourself. You judge your own choices and actions, follow rules of the employer, get paid. Getting paid is good!

You may or may not like it, if you like patient care now, you will likely continue to like it.

Most of what you learn in school is trying to teach you how to think like a nurse, to see/assess/interpret. In school you concentrate just on those few patients and diagnoses, real hospital world is lots of patients, multiple diagnoses, plus all the stuff we do that isn't "nursey"; the inservices, policies, equipment, politics, paperwork, following up on your aides, extra duties.

Also in school you learn the basics that are second nature after a while; what seems of paramount importance in school (proper handwashing, all those skill sets) are things you must be able to do but real world nursing is so much more. That stuff comes with experience, living it. Just the next step in becoming a good nurse. We never stop learning (at least I hope so!), and adapting. There are hundreds of "real nursing" worlds, the trick is to find the one you want to live in.

RunBabyRN · Dec 5, 2014

I say it depends on what it is that you do and don't like about nursing school.

I wouldn't say that nursing is NOTHING like school, but there are a lot of differences. There's a different feel to it being YOUR license on the line. Also, the first year of nursing is, in many ways, like school. There are a lot of struggles, you are possibly in a new grad program with a preceptor, you're studying things, depending on where you live, you're constantly applying for jobs, which is very time-consuming, there's the uncertainty and awkwardness of being new... But you find your groove with time, and hopefully, find the area of nursing that appeals to you. From there, you end up kind of dropping the knowledge that doesn't apply, and really getting familiar with the stuff that does.

seriouslyserious, LPN · Dec 5, 2014

you don't have to like nursing (in general)... all you need to do is competently treat your patient and keep them alive until the next nurse arrives or they are discharged. it is a means to an end (a paycheck). do the bare minimum... this is what REAL WORLD nursing is about... per this forum and my experience in school. did i get that right? LoL

akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P · Dec 5, 2014

You don't have to like nursing to be good at it, though liking what you do certainly helps in that regard. I'm a paramedic. Even though I'm very new as an RN, I'm not new to the fact that there are differences between school and work in any given field. School attempts to provide the student with a relatively "pure" environment so that the student can learn the important concepts that are necessary to begin to work. We all know this. What the work environment does is hone your basic skills, and sometimes improves upon them, so that you can become ultimately very proficient at what you do.

The other transition that takes place is one where you become entirely responsible for your own actions. While you're in school, you generally have a safety net in the form of clinical instructors and preceptors. They provide guardrails for you to keep you from too far away from safe practice. Where things get interesting in the school environment is when you have students like me that have to hold themselves back because they do have experience because to unleash everything I know could lead me to exceed my authorized scope. On the one hand, it's good that I want to be independent, but on the other, I have to be very careful because when I'm on my own, that independent streak can bite me, but simultaneously I must develop my abilities. I've done this process as a Paramedic and I'm going to have to do it again when I become a working nurse. The only difference between us, really, is that I know the end point because I've been there.

It took me about a year to become comfortable in my role as a Paramedic. I suspect that it'll take about that long, maybe longer, for me to settle into my role as an RN because I'll be learning new boundaries of what's OK and not OK.

In the real world as a Paramedic, I used much of what they taught... and more, but I also honed my knowledge and skills to a much sharper point than they are right now as I've gotten kind of rusty at things from disuse. You don't realize you're using the base knowledge, but you do use it much more than you might realize because you'll be solid in your reasoning for what you do because you know the basic "why" behind what you do or you see.

Working under your own license is both better and scarier than working as a student.

All the above doesn't rely on you liking your job... just that you are able to learn to do it well. If you like what you do, you'll never work a day in your life, even if you're at your job many hours a day and are incredibly busy doing what you do. I'm fortunate in that I like what I did as a Paramedic. I woke up every morning thinking, "awesome, I get to go to work today!" I had the same feeling going to clinicals. I don't have that feeling at my current job... it's a paycheck and bennies.

llg, PhD, RN · Dec 5, 2014

I hated nursing school ... but have not hated being a nurse. You don't have to like school to like being a nurse -- or to be a good nurse.