Should I leave nursing school, even if I just started?

[willowmadrone]

Hey there. After a while of deciding between social work/counseling/psych related careers and nursing, I settled on nursing as a career with reliable income and job security that would satisfy the science-y, hands-on, and people-oriented aspects of my personality and mind. I loved, loved, loved all of my pre-reqs, and was among the highest grades in each class, and got that 4.0.

Fast forward to the start of my ABSN program not too long ago, and I'm wondering if I've denied my intuition and gut instincts. After our orientation day, I went home and cried for (and, yes, this is embarrassing to admit) 5 hours off and on. After the first day, during which I felt on the verge of tears almost the entire time, I went home and cried.

I'm terrified that though a large part of me knows my passions lie elsewhere, I just reasoned my way over to nursing for a decent salary (I've never made more than 28K in a year) and a job that seemed like it would do the trick for me, and my body and soul are not tolerating the betrayal. I was probably foolish in not getting my CNA prior to the ABSN to test the waters, but I heard of plenty of folks jumping in and doing fine.

I'm curious what folks' and friends' and coworkers' experiences have been. Anyone have that awful feeling at the start—that questioning—and wish they'd listened? Anyone work through it and were stoked they did? And, having just started, with no dependents, should I leave now?

[birdy95]

I know when I have big changes in my life it can be difficult for me to know if my "gut instinct" that is telling me to run is really because I am making the wrong decision or because I am afraid. Give yourself time to sort through the thoughts that lead to the crying and really envisioning what happens if you quit and what happens if you don't. You have gotten so far and are smart - you will find the right thing! I am changing careers in my 40's - you can always keep moving toward what you want, even if you take safe options for now.

[CommunityRNBSN, BSN, RN]

I used to teach school. I remember getting my degree and going in for that first day of teaching. Standing in front of 20 little pairs of eyes and thinking “I may have made a huge mistake.”

The thing is though, I ended up enjoying teaching. Sure, it wasn’t my life’s passion. I never was going to win Teacher of the Year. But it was fine. The kids were cute and learned a lot, I really got close to some of the other teachers, who became my friends. It was fine.

At this point, you are certainly not “stuck.” You can quit easily if you’re miserable! But if you just have that fear of commitment, fear of “what if I hate it”... I wouldn’t put too much stock in it.

[Rionoir, ADN, RN]

Had a friend who was wicked smart and aced everything in her pre-reqs, was in nursing classes a couple weeks and realized she had no desire to be there. She already had a degree in biology and ended up doing something in nutrition and is completely happy now. No point being there if you don't like it - there's tons of things to do in related fields.

[NurseBlaq]

Finish the first semester of actual nursing classes. If you don't like it, switch then to whatever your passion is but don't continue until the end and waste time and money on something you don't want to do. Nursing isn't for everyone and I've been a nurse and a patient, and you can tell nurses who got into for money and those who truly enjoy nursing on both sides.

[FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN]

On 6/26/2019 at 1:54 PM, willowmadrone said:

Thank you for taking the time to reply, Luchador and not.done.yet. And thank you, not.done.yet for distinguishing between the distress of being completely green to the "hard" skills of nursing and repulsion by what nurses actually do—that's really helpful, and where I need to attain some clarity. And thank you for your empathy and reassurance that I'm not stuck. I've done some self-care since to get to a place where I can sort this out with a bit more calm than in the first days and weeks. But there's definitely a thread of tension, and a pit in my stomach.

My "soft" skills—listening, communication, even boundary-setting—are pretty developed from working in the realm of social work and domestic violence/sexual assault survivor advocacy. My RN friends encouraged me toward nursing when I mentioned interest, saying that those skills are what matter the most in patient care, and that I'll learn the rest. That I'll do fine in a hospital environment, especially in the right specialty.

I honestly think a bit part of my fear stems from hearing about burn out. Not having CNA or MA experience, I'm naive to what it's like being in the hospital. I'm worried that I've taken the plunge without enough info. What if I will be one of these nurses I hear or read about who graduates, starts working, and hates it after months or even years? I know what-iffing all over myself can go from being cautious to simply paralyzing. I'm curious if you have any insight on what to do with that what-if, not.done.yet?

You don't ever have to work in a hospital as an RN.

RNs who are in it for the people connection are highly valued and can find great satisfaction in the right environment.

Community psych (and even inpatient psych to an extent), group homes, pediatric home health, nurse family partnership, developmental disabilities, these are environments where sensitive social worker type RNs do really well.

You just have to make it through nursing school, which is time limited.

You got this.

[JKL33]

On 6/25/2019 at 9:40 PM, willowmadrone said:

I'm terrified that though a large part of me knows my passions lie elsewhere, I just reasoned my way over to nursing for a decent salary (I've never made more than 28K in a year) and a job that seemed like it would do the trick for me, and my body and soul are not tolerating the betrayal.

If you are fairly certain that is the true source of your distress, the right answer isn't to rationalize or mis-reason again in order to convince yourself that nursing will be okay.

OTOH:

On 6/28/2019 at 4:04 PM, birdy95 said:

I know when I have big changes in my life it can be difficult for me to know if my "gut instinct" that is telling me to run is really because I am making the wrong decision or because I am afraid.

^ This is the important underlying question at this point. Are your feelings related mostly to what you said above, or is it a case of cold feet?

When you think about the type of positions/roles you would like to have in the future, is a nursing degree generally required? If not, which qualifications would you need to have?

I favor a previous poster's suggestion of finishing out the semester and re-evaluating.

I am never one to try to convince anyone else to become a nurse. If someone has their own personal reason for pursuing it, fine. This is my own personal feeling and opinion, but I think nursing is too emotionally complicated to qualify as a profession that I would recommend someone to "try out" just because they have a couple of interests that happen to overlap with parts of nursing. For these reasons I would not try to dissuade you, but would say that if there is some plausible profession that a person feels more drawn to or suited for, they should pursue that.

Good luck and don't panic. This decision doesn't have to be made instantly. Just give yourself a little bit of space to adjust and see how your true feelings shake out. Take care!

[2BS Nurse, BSN]

Try to shadow a RN outside of your clinical. This would separate the anxiety caused by the need to "perform" at clinical. You could talk to someone working in home health, a clinic, occupational health, long term care (although most do have a clinical here), employee health, psych, insurance company, etc, etc.

Oh, and drop that 4.0 expectation. Some of your classes will be graded subjectively and there's nothing like NCLEX style questions (always 2 right answers) in any other curriculum.