If you’ve read any of my blog posts (truly, any of them), you should know that I’m in nursing school. It’s like, what I do 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I’m just kidding! Or am I?

Nursing school is the most infuriating yet life-giving path I’ve ever pursued. It is the most painful yet beautiful thing to experience. There’s days where I feel on top of the world, truly making a difference in patient lives, and others where I feel like a dofus with a stethoscope around my neck.

But, I have learned a thing or two on how to do this thing. And I want to share with you the knowledge I have gained through my journey. Let’s get into it.

1. Have Nursing School Friends

Read my blog post on NSBFFs if you haven’t already to get all the details on my personal experience of finding friends in the program. What I cannot emphasize enough is how absolutely necessary they are to actually make it through nursing school. There have been so many times where I have almost forgotten to complete an assignment, almost missed clinical, or almost overlooked important content in lecture – these are all “almosts” thanks to my amazing nursing school, and real-life, best friends. We all work together to support one another, motivate each other, and lift one another up when in time of need. Trust me, you need these kinds of people in your life while you embark on arguably one of the hardest journeys you will ever take. No one else will truly understand what your going through like they will.

2. Have Friends Outside of Nursing School

Just as it’s important to have friends in nursing school, it is also equally as important to have friends that absolutely have no connection to nursing whatsoever. There will be days where you need to completely get away from nursing and these kinds of friends are the perfect escape.

3. Form A Study Group

This plays off of my first tip – your study group can be your friends. However, your study group may also include others as well. There is so much value in having multiple perspectives. Five brains working together will always be better than one. I can tell you from experience, I would not have done nearly as well on my exams if I had not studied for them with a group of my peers. What my brain didn’t understand or pick up on, my friends’ did, and vice versa. We all help to prepare each other not only for the exam, but also for being a well-educated and equipped future nurse.

4. Save Yourself Time

When you begin real nursing school (when you start clinicals and nursing-focused lecture classes), save your notes. At the end of each semester, compile your notes into comprehensive study pages for review. This is something I wish I had done. Many others have told me that it is so helpful to have these review pages when studying for the NCLEX. In a more general sense, figure out what saves you time when it comes to studying for exams, taking notes, completing projects, etc. Our time is precious, and we don’t have any to waste.

5. Don’t Be A Perfectionist

Perfectionism is the enemy of peace. It’s unachievable, yet I’ve spent so many years still trying to conquer it. I would work on projects and papers, and study for exams for hours trying to ensure an “A” on everything I did. And I’ll be honest, I got the grades I wanted. But it was always at the expense of my mental health. Yes, you should be eager learn, study hard, apply yourself, and be prepared… but do not sacrifice yourself to nursing. Find your balance.

6. Expect Confusion, Failure, and Forgetfulness

You will not know everything. In fact, there will be many times where you’ll walk into clinical knowing absolutely nothing. And that’s okay. You will fail at performing nursing skills. You will try and put in an IV and completely miss. And that’s okay. You’ll learn about a disease in lecture and then completely forget everything you know about it the moment you see a patient with that condition in real life. And that’s okay. The moral of the story here is, expect to experience these things because I promise you, you will. Give yourself grace for your shortcomings. We all have them. We all make it through them.

7. Anticipate Rejection

There will be times in which you are paired with a nurse, or given a patient, who absolutely does not want to work with you. Reasonings vary from being too busy to take you on, to having too complex of a patient load, to just finding nursing students to be a complete nuisance. It’s going to happen, but do not let it affect your confidence or self-perception. When faced with rejection, simply brush it off and remind yourself that it’s not you, it’s them.

8. Talk To Instructors

Truly connecting with professors is something I wish I had started doing sooner in my nursing school career. It can be easy to see professors and clinical instructors as evil puppet masters that stay up at night scheming of ways to puppet you around and make your life miserable (when stress is high, the mind goes to strange places). But in reality, they are people, and 9 times out of 10 they simply want you to be a successful nurse. Talk to them, pick their brains about all of their experiences, hear about their teaching philosophies and why they became a nursing professor. Visit them in their offices, ask them about their lives, and write them thank you notes at the end of the semester if they impacted you in some way. I promise, it’s worth it.

9. Talk To Patients

At some point in your life, you’ve experienced hospitalization. It may not have been you laying in that bed, but maybe a family member or close friend instead. Think about how stressful, traumatic, and frustrating it was to be faced with illness. When you walk into a patient’s room, remind yourself of this. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve been thanked by patients for simply speaking to them. Asking them about their family, friends, and life experiences makes them feel truly cared for. You’ll find that sometimes the nurse you are working with is too busy running around trying to take care of all their patients, leaving no time for lengthy conversations. Take it upon yourself to support the individuals that need it.

10. Don’t Be A Fly On The Wall

Clinical experiences will not be handed to you. You must go out and make them happen for yourself. Speaking up is never something that came naturally to me, however I learned quickly that I have to advocate for myself in order to learn in the clinical setting. If your patient is going to have a urinary catheter placed, ask if you can do it with your instructor. If your nurse is trying to treat you like a tech, respectfully inform them that you are here to learn how to be a nurse, not just perform tasks they don’t want to do. If there is an opportunity to watch a unique procedure, ask if you can observe. My best experiences in the clinical setting are always ones of which I made happen for myself. Do not be a fly on the wall. Get in on the action.

11. Journal

This is yet another piece of advice I wish I had when beginning clinicals over a year ago. Write about your clinical experiences – document the skills you performed, the difficult patient situations you were in, and the times in which you positively impacted your patient. These will be so helpful to have recorded when you are preparing to interview for jobs. You will be asked lots of questions about your clinical experiences. Having situations on hand, ready to go, will set you up to successfully answer every single one of them.

As a disclaimer, you shouldn’t store or record any information that violates HIPPA. Just had to throw that in there.

12. Keep An Open Mind

If you have a nursing specialty in mind that you are dead set on going into nursing school – be open to the possibility that you might change your mind. On the same note, find value in every clinical you experience. Even if you hate labor and delivery, there is something to learn and take away from the rotation. You may even begin the semester thinking, “I’ll never like watching people give birth”, and then end up falling absolutely in love with all things maternity. Be open. Value every experience. Give yourself permission to change your mind.

13. Ignore Social Media

With recent news of the RaDonda Vaught trial, this is even harder to do in today’s world. There is so much negativity out there about the nursing profession. It comes from all sides too, including many nurses themselves. It’s hard to tune out all the noise, I get it. But I really encourage you to try. Remember why you chose to go into this profession in the first place. Hold onto your “why” even when the world overwhelms you with their opinions. (Disclaimer: I am not in any way speaking on my opinion of the trial)

14. Debrief

Do not allow yourself to hold it all in. Do not bottle up your emotions. Sometimes you need a good cry. You will encounter really hard, weighty things in this profession. Let yourself feel what you need to feel and talk to who you need to talk to when you have a rough day or are overwhelmed by taking care of a mentally exhausting patient. The beautiful thing about nursing is that we have the privilege of making an impact on the lives of patients in devastating situations, including death. You are a person, too, and will feel emotions just as that patient and their family do. It’s okay. Let yourself process them, and get any necessary help you need in order to do that.

15. Celebrate Yourself

Nursing school is freaking hard work – celebrate your successes, your achievements, your “A” on that hard exam, your flawless catheter insertion, and your hard work on your concept map! I find myself constantly forgetting to celebrate myself as well. It is so easy to get into “go mode” and forget how proud you should be that you are doing these hard things and actively making a difference in people’s lives. Go get some ice cream, buy yourself that cute dress that is too expensive, splurge on dinner at that fancy restaurant, or whatever else you want to do to make yourself feel special! Because you are!

16. Take Breaks and Unplug

Assignments, exams, quizzes, and projects will always be there… remember to take a break and step away from them once in a while. I recommend trying to have at least one day each week in which you do nothing school related. Saturdays are usually my days off. Now, this is the goal, but sometimes it just doesn’t work out that way, and that is okay too. Integrate smaller breaks into your day instead. Point being, make sure you are making time to completely remove yourself from all things nursing school – even when you have a million things to do. I promise, you will always have a million things to do. So just take a break once in a while from trying to complete them all.

17. Remember Your Why

Think back to number 13. There are many times in which the world around you becomes overwhelming. You might feel like giving up. I’ll tell you – I have felt like this as well. But in those moments, remember your “why”. Why did you want to become a nurse? Why do you keep coming back to clinical day after day? Why do you want to finish this program? Remind yourself of these things. Recenter your focus to get through those extremely trying times.

18.Sleep.

SLEEP. You need it! Don’t sacrifice it! You can’t be a good nursing student without it! Nothing good comes from being a zombie at clinical. Haven’t you seen the walking dead?

19. Fuel And Move Your Body

Fuel your body! Eat nutritious meals to power your hard working brain. Move your body! Exercise is easy to sacrifice in the name of nursing school. Do. Not. Let. Yourself. Do. This. Find something that you enjoy and keeps you moving. It may be long walks at sunset, intense workout classes, powerlifting, relaxing yoga sessions – whatever it may be, regularly integrate it into your life. You are the priority. If you do not take take of yourself first, you cannot successfully take care of patients. Sleep, eat, and exercise.

20. Be A College Student

Do not forget to take the time to participate in typical college student-life things. For me, this means going to OU Weekend in October, taking a Spring Break trip with all my girlfriends, and skipping studying for a quiz to instead have an impromptu late night ice cream run on a Wednesday night with my roomates. Be a college student! This experience only last 4 years and there won’t be anything else like it. Be spontaneous, go to events, join organizations on campus. Since we are here, let’s do this thing right.

21. Do Things Other Than Nursing

On the same topic, but an even broader idea. Develop your artistic abilities, read books for fun, go to concerts, play the piano, start a blog! Do whatever you want to do that makes you happy. I’ll say it again – do what makes you happy!

22. Learn!

Finally, I’m going to bring my last tip back to the whole reason for this post in the first place; nursing school. Learn as much as you can while you’re here. Do your best to study and really understand the information given to you. Prepare yourself to pass the NCLEX and be a real nurse. However, know this – you will still feel incompetent upon graduation. You will still feel like an imposter those first 6 months to a year of being a licensed nurse. Learn as much you can, while knowing in the back of your mind that you will not know everything. Do your best to get there, though.

Final Note

I hope these tips were helpful for you. While they are pretty specific to nursing school, if you are not currently in a program or if you have no plans on entering one, I hope you still took something away from this post as well. Which tip do you like the most?

Until next time.

Much Love,

Lovisa Kay