sink or swim (or something in between)

My first (abbreviated) week of nursing school is complete. This week was atypical because classes began Tuesday, and Wednesday was void of any classroom time due to two clinical orientation programs. (My actual clinical experience, however, won’t begin until late September/early October.) The first five weeks (the entire semester is sixteen weeks) of classes are dedicated to fundamentals of nursing lecture and lab; week six will see the fundamentals class transform to med-surgery lecture, lab, and clinical. In addition to those courses, pharmacology is spread across all sixteen weeks. The fundamentals lecture course is all about reading, reading and more reading. This first week, for example, is dedicated to reading EIGHT chapters, and next week sees a reading assignment of five chapters. As I said: reading reading reading. Because of the chaotic nature of week one, I had no pharmacology classes, but a make-up day has been scheduled for mid September. My fundamentals instructor warned us about pharmacology, so I’m bracing myself for more mental heavy lifting.

For me, week one was like being thrown into the deep end for the first time: I initially felt overloaded by the shock of, well, everything, but I quickly gathered myself and began assessing the shocking reality of my new situation. I’m not swimming yet, but I’m staying afloat relatively easily. Indeed, the following weeks and months will be unlike anything I have ever experienced.

xx