Reflections On My First Semester Of Nursing School

The past three months have flown by faster than I could have imagined.
The past three months living in NYC have been a bigger adjustment than I could have imagined.
But pursuing a career in nursing has felt more right and been more life-giving than I could have imagined.

When I decided I wanted to make a career change last August, I kind of just made up my mind one day and then went full speed ahead. God opened my heart to going back to school, I felt strongly compelled, and didn’t second guess much of my decision. Since starting school in May, I feel even more assured in my decision to go back to school. Even when finals week rolled around and I was studying nearly every waking second or when my heart ached because I missed my friends in Charlottesville so much or when I had to say no to fun things in the city because we had to study for an exam on Monday. I never thought “why did I do this?” I think that’s a really good thing. It feels reassuring.

As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve never felt more called to something. I know I’m only 3 months into this journey, but considering we are 1/3 of the way to a BSN, I’m really glad that I love this field so much. I thought I really loved my job as an RD, and I really do, but I don’t think I’ve been as passionate and excited about something as I am about becoming an RN and ultimately an NP. I feel so grateful to not only be pursing this, but to be in a field where you get to be part of the most intimate and vulnerable parts of people’s lives. I can only imagine what the next 9 months will bring. And that excites me.

But really, the one thing I know I’ve learned in the past 3 months is that nursing is hard. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but there were days when I thought, “How will I ever know all there is to know?” Columbia has been such an amazing experience. Every day I’m thankful that I get to learn here and have this opportunity.

We are learning so much. This past summer semester, we learned how to do a full physical assessment which seemed insane at first but now that the final for that is over, it feels so satisfying to know I can do that now. Essentially, we had to do a full head to toe physical exam on our lab partner that is best described as a 30-minute monologue. So much memorization.

Admist the overflowing about of information I learned in the classroom, I’ve also learned some other really valuable things.

Nursing school has taught me to really embrace my body.  Before school, I’d say that overall I had a pretty healthy relationship with my body. But I don’t think I had fully embraced my body. We took Advanced Physiology this summer and the more I learned about the intricate details of how the body works, the more I thought how ridiculous it was to focus on physical appearance. It is absolutely insane how the body works, and even more so how it works properly day in and day out- how everything just runs smoothly to keep us healthy. All the steps that have to go right for your heart to beat just once is so detailed, and then it beats again and again and agains for YEARS. That’s incredible to me.

In physical assessment lab we were half naked the majority of the time practicing on our partner. There’s something really beautiful about an “imperfect” [for lack of a better word] body. Gaining this perspective has been so refreshing and freeing for me. Throughout the semester I had this overwhelming peace and contentment with having a body that is just your average female body. A woman’s body with a healthy amount of fat and curves and cellulite. You learn to grow really comfortable in your skin when you and your partner are examining each other every day. I think that’s pretty awesome.

I’ve also learned that it’s okay to admit adjusting to NYC has been harder than I thought. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve got to see some pretty cool things. When I’m running through Central Park on a Saturday before I pick up some groceries at TJs I’m always blown away that this is just my Saturday morning. I use to run around Central Park while visiting thinking, “How do people LIVE here?!” Welp, I’ve learned it’s hard to adjust to living here. Everything takes longer, people are a wee bit [aka a lot] different than they are in Charlottesville, and even the simple tasks like grocery shopping are harder. And that was a difficult adjustment for me. It’s been really comforting to know that when I talk to other people about adjusting they say, “oh girl, it’s a huge learning curve and I went through the same thing.” But I’m so glad I’ve walked through that and I still am. It’s taught me SO much about myself, my lack of faith, and what faith actually looks like played out.

These first few months have been such an adventure! I am so excited to be refreshed and renewed after two weeks away and then to jump back into the city and back into school.

The fall will be what seems, much more manageable. Instead of 8 hours of class on Monday, 12 hours on Tuesday and the hospital all day on Wednesday- we will only be in 4 hours of class on M, T and F and then in the hospital all day on Wednesday and Thursday. And instead of having 6 different classes to keep up with, in the fall we are rotating through different specialties for 5 weeks each. So I will start with Psychiatry when we start in September and then move on to Pediatrics, Community Health, Labor and Delivery and then Med/Surg. Our class on M and F goes along with our clinical rotation in each speciality and then the only other class we have is Pathophysiology on Tuesdays. And all classes don’t start till 9am or later, wahoo!

All that to say, I think getting back into a regular blogging schedule will be doable and I’m so excited to be back into the swing of things! If you have something you’d like me to write about- please email me! And I think I’m going to still do Q & A videos on Fridays so if you have a question you can email me about that too.

And just to clarify since I’ve got questions about this, I am most definitely still taking new Nutshell clients and will continue to take new clients. Instead of blogging these past few weeks, I focused #1 on school and #2 on continuing to see current clients and take new clients so if that’s of interest to you or somebody you know- email me about that too 🙂

Cheers to more adventures in school and NYC!