Does being ‘busy’ ever end?

Does being ‘busy’ ever end?

I have felt this way for the last few months, and every time I do – I feel bad. Not only am I not the busiest person around, but I don’t have kids or other people I am responsible for and need my time and attention…so really, in the grand scheme of things, I’m not busy. I think ‘overwhelmed’ is a better way to describe how I’ve really been feeling since September, which was when I last posted on this blog.

Without going into the details, since my last post, I have…. gone through most of a uni semester feeling like I was barely treading water, sold a house (in only one day thankfully), moved house during the uni semester, started a new casual job (not nursing related), completed uni exams….and as of yesterday have just started my first (ever) clinical placement.

A post specifically about clinical placement in the near future, but as a ‘teaser’…clinical placement is a real eye-opener if you have never worked in a hospital environment before. If you’re a student nurse, I probably don’t need to tell you that it will be challenging and nerve-wracking also, but I think if you’re nervous then it means you care about doing a great job on your placement.

That’s it for today…time for me to get ready for day two, out of ten days of placement.

May need a bigger bridge than I thought…

So I may need to build a bigger bridge than I thought….it’s been practically 3 months since my last post!

In my defence, uni has been very busy, as has my life outside uni, so I am going to cut myself some slack on this occasion. However, I am about to spend a bit of time planning some sort of blogging schedule. So if anyone has any topic ideas they’d like to see please comment on this post!!

I really want to use this space for reflection, as well as sharing my experiences. This could be helpful to other student nurses. After all, reflection is a part of the competency standards I am assessed on as a student and when qualified as a Registered Nurse.

So, you will hear from me again soon! Until then, something to make you giggle 🙂

Bridging the gap…

Ok, so I am guilty of being a terrible blogger!

I had very good intentions to blog at least once a week however this first semester has taken a bit to adapt to.
So I’ve had very limited time to do anything much besides what has been necessary.

Rather than trying to cover everything that has happened in 14 weeks of uni, to bridge the gap I’ve focused on some of the things I’ve learned instead. These are a little further down – and it does mean that this particular post is quite long, so feel free to read the bits you want as you like 🙂 I will make future posts shorter and sweeter!

But I just want to say, I am loving doing a nursing course and I really feel as though this is the career path I should be taking. It just feels right!

As you go along with your studies I think it’s a good idea to reflect on what you’re learning and to see where you can improve. There is always room for improvement.
With that in mind, some things that I have realised during my first semester of nursing are:
(most of these things are general and not specific to nursing)

• Pay attention to detail – this may seem obvious, but you don’t often think about all the details, especially in assessments, that do need special attention.
• Read questions carefully – whether these are exam questions, essay questions or even just questions as part of your weekly class work. I can’t stress this enough because it is often only the way a question is worded and our tendency to read over things too quickly that means we misread and misinterpret questions, especially when it matters (like in an exam).
• When referencing, check and check again that you’ve followed the rules of the referencing style your school uses – we use the APA style, and although I do know the basics for this, and have a guide from our uni, I made a lot of stupid little mistakes with my referencing. Mostly because I didn’t pay attention to detail, I didn’t check and double-check the formatting of my reference lists, and in general I rushed my assessments this semester, so did not pay as much attention to detail as I should have.
• Plan ahead, be organised and do not procrastinate – I love to be organised and I love organising, so you would think that the semester would be easier for someone like me? Wrong! When you throw procrastination into the mix it doesn’t matter how much you’ve planned or organised, it stuffs everything up! You will pay for procrastination later when you actually get around to doing the work you’re procrastinating on now – so just suck it up and do it now!
• Start working on assessments from day one – I don’t mean for you to go and write every assessment in the first week when you haven’t even learnt the content needed to write them! Start by planning how much time each assessment will take to complete, and then schedule this into your weekly study timetable so that you can work on the assessment in smaller, more manageable parts. Include time for researching, writing drafts, editing and working with others (if this is required). And whatever you do, don’t leave starting assessment until the last day or two before it is due. So much unnecessary stress is involved and you also won’t give yourself the best chance to get the fantastic marks you could have been capable of with adequate time and commitment given to the task.
• Be open to different ways of learning – I’ve had to try different ways of studying and learning throughout the semester to see what works for my situation and me. Everyone has different study habits and different home-life situations, so no two people will find the same method or timing of study suitable. Find the time of day you are most productive with your study and plan your study sessions around those times. Get rid of unnecessary distractions and if possible turn off social media etc while you’re doing your study sessions. This may only be for a couple of hours at a time and I’m sure those status updates can wait 🙂
• Try to do a little bit each day – I have found that the weeks when I did a little bit of work each day, even if this was just doing some of my readings, or working on an assessment, I was able to stay on task and felt I was understanding the content more. It also meant that I didn’t fall behind with my work and then be stressed out about having to catch up, especially when it came to studying for exams.
• Write comprehensive yet concise notes – when you’re taking your reading notes, or taking notes during lectures, make sure they’re concise and to the point but comprehensive enough that they cover all the content you need to be learning. Especially for those subjects that have exams at the end of the semester. It makes it so much easier to go back and study when your notes are complete to start with because you don’t have to go back and re-do the work to study for your exam.
• Read ALL of the information given to you and don’t over-analyse things – I saw so many people this semester over-analyse assessment tasks, or the information given to them, or even just some of the content being taught. This got them stressed out and panicked about their assessments. It got to the point where some people were so worried they weren’t doing the right thing for their assessments that way too much of our class time was spent with the tutors explaining the assessments and answering heaps of questions and then for the rest of us who actually read the information we were given we missed out on valuable learning time.

This last one really was just a chance for me to vent. At uni one of the things I find most annoying is people who don’t bother to read the learning guides, unit outlines or communication put up on our e-learning site. The unit coordinators and the tutors don’t give us this communication for fun, it is there to guide us and uni is all about self-directed learning.
So, by people being lazy and expecting to be spoon-fed every piece of information I think it has the potential to reduce their learning capacity throughout the course. They aren’t stretching themselves, they aren’t striving to achieve anything further than what they absolutely have to and they aren’t setting the bar higher than they have before.
I love learning and taking as many opportunities that are afforded to me, so making sure I get every bit of information possible is important to me. I suppose that’s why I find it so annoying when other people just can’t be bothered.

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I was surprised and excited to find that my blog was featured on nursingdegree.org 🙂

Thanks for sharing the love nursingdegree.org xox

‘Top 50 Nursing Blogs‘

Back into the swing of things

The first 2 weeks of my course have been and gone so quickly, and as you can imagine they were very busy (hence this only being the first post since starting the course).

I’m getting back into the swing of UNI life with classes, studying, working, feeling sleep deprived, studying, and procrastinating, then more studying….well, you get the picture 🙂 I know things are only going to get busier, more stressful and more complicated but it’s all a good experience, so the pain is worth it.

I’ve found the most difficult things I’ve had to get used to again are time management and avoiding procrastination (and I’m sure I’m not alone here). It seems there are always more interesting or pressing things to be done other than studying. Then after procrastinating for however long, doing other things that could wait for another time, or that don’t even need to be done at all, I realise I have very little time to complete what actually needs to be done. Which creates more stress, and pressure, making me feel overwhelmed and slightly helpless about the mountain of tasks to be completed. The danger with all of this is that, if you’re not careful, it becomes a vicious cycle throughout the semester leaving you feeling like you’re ‘behind the eight ball’ and that it’s impossible to catch up. You pull a regular all-nighter to finish an assessment or to cram for an exam, you’re never completing all your readings and tasks for classes each week and you find that, generally, your assessment marks are nothing to boast about.

Well, although I feel like I’m at the beginning of this vicious cycle I am reining things in before they get out of control. I refuse to fall into that cycle. I’ve got higher expectations of myself at university this time around and failing because of being disorganised and not managing my time properly is not an option.

Understanding content

I had never thought a nursing degree would be easy, and in many ways university in general isn’t easy either. There is always plenty of reading to be done – often whole chapters, if not multiple chapters of your textbooks, need to be read each week. Add to that any activities your tutors want you to complete before coming to class, and of course assessments and revision for any exams you may have. For a couple of my subjects, but mainly for the subject that covers Anatomy & Physiology (A&P), I have had to re-think the way I study and even the way I learn.

I often find that if I don’t understand how/why something works, or the reasoning behind it, I struggle to grasp the concept completely and don’t really learn properly. However, with A&P I am finding that I just have to learn by memorising most things and I won’t always understand everything as easily as I can understand other things. There’s nothing wrong with this, it’s just another way that I am finding I need to shift how I learn to get the most out of the subject. With A&P it’s all fact-based learning, there isn’t really anything much that changes and it’s not up for interpretation like some other subject’s content. So taking this into account it really should be easier for me to learn. We’ll see how I go…

Clinical Practice Unit (CPU)

In order to practice the practical skills for nursing, the universe has Clinical Practice Units (CPUs). These are like mini hospital wards with mannequins, which have varying degrees of functionality, in the beds as patients. They are odd-looking mannequins with googly eyes and mouths wide open. They have weird ‘bits’, including being able to see their insides and some even have amputations. The classes we have in the CPUs are predominantly practical classes so that we can learn and build our practical nursing skills. So far we’ve started off slowly with learning correct hand-washing and bed-making techniques, but as we progress the simulations will become more complex and time-consuming, which is good. The practical component of my course, not surprisingly, is already my favourite part of the week.

Now, I really need to tackle some readings and some prep for a couple of assessments next week, and seeing as I’m not going to procrastinate any more 😉 I better get going. Feel free to ask questions or suggest a topic you’d like to hear about.

I’ll leave you with this cute ‘Stages Of Procrastination’ from chibird.tumblr.com

(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhigp34nOa1qc4uvwo1_500.png)

I’m already nearing the crisis stage hahaha

Only 3 days to go!

Finally I’m counting down the days and not the weeks until my course officially starts!

I’m still excited and am also starting to get a little apprehensive about it all but I think that’s just me stressing a little about how much work there is to do at uni and about everything else I still have to manage outside of uni. However, I know that it’s all going to work out, even if I do end up with a severe caffeine addiction by the end of it all 🙂

This week we had our orientation session, which provided useful information and allowed all the unit coordinators/teaching staff to introduce themselves. They were running campus tours and library tours so we could get used to the facilities available to us. I had already found a lot of the information beforehand but it was good to start meeting other students who are in the same course.

Two current nursing students spoke about their experiences and gave us all a bit more of an idea of what we really can expect during the course. I found this quite interesting because the two students seemed to come from very different backgrounds, had very different experiences in the course and were both doing well with their studies. They both had very different experiences to share so it really helps you appreciate that everyone experiences their studies in such different ways.

Other than orientation the only other step forward is that we now have access to our e-learning sites for the units we are studying. So we can now see what we have to do each week, what our assessments are and what is expected from us. This is when it starts to become more daunting because you finally see how much work you’ve got to do!

Until next week….when the fun really begins!

 

Some new info to add to ‘A Pleasant Surprise’

So…I previously did a post about my surprise at being offered a place in the Advanced Bachelor of Nursing course – you can read that post here:  ‘A Pleasant Surprise’

Well, a little bit of info that has made me even more excited about being accepted, is that they only accept a maximum of 30 people into the Advanced Bachelor of Nursing!
To put that into perspective, the uni has accepted approx 1100 places for the Bachelor of Nursing this year.
Makes me feel a bit special 🙂

I’ve picked up a stupid cold somewhere and am feeling pretty blah, so this little bit of information was enough to brighten my otherwise yucky day 🙂
 

A Nursing School Survival Pack…made by a kindergarten teacher

My fiancé, who is a primary school teacher (kindergarten at the moment), surprised me with a Nursing School Survival Pack – a little pack full of things that will help me get through the ups & downs of a nursing degree.

It is such a fun and thoughtful gesture and it made me realise that in him I have a supportive partner who is willing to put up with me throughout the stressful times that I will face during this nursing degree. Not only will he put up with me, but he will try to reduce some of the stress I face, all whilst facing his own stresses and challenges as a primary school teacher. And this is one of the many reasons I love him!

A little joke from within the care pack…

Q:  What did one light bulb say to the other?
A:  I love you a whole watt!

The gallery below showcases his handiwork.

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University…remind yourself it’s an investment

After spending at least $800 on textbooks and other supplies for 1st semester (including any prerequisites for the course such as first aid certification, police check etc) I am needing to remind myself that university is an investment!

As I stood in the university’s bookshop handing over way too much money for a bunch of books (see photo above), which at this stage I have no idea what half of them are on about, I found it difficult to see the bigger picture.

Once I got home, had a flick through these dense and physically heavy textbooks, I was able to reflect on the situation and even begin to get excited about what these expensive books mean to me. Although there will be times that I will complain about the financial cost involved with studying nursing, it is an investment that I am lucky to be making!

This pile of books, full of  facts and procedures, represent a valuable opportunity at this stage in my life. I have been given a place, as a mature age student, in a course that will allow me to gain a qualification which will give me good employment opportunities throughout my working life. As a nurse I will be able to help other people in a time of need and have a rewarding career as well.

Thankfully in Australia we have FEE-HELP* to help cover the cost of university course fees, so you don’t have to pay upfront for your course. I am benefiting from this and am grateful for this opportunity. However, I am also aware that not everyone chooses, or has, this opportunity to defer their course fees and do work very hard to pay their fees upfront.

 

*“FEE-HELP is a loan scheme that assists eligible fee paying students pay all or part of their tuition fees. It cannot be used for additional study costs such as accommodation or text books.”

 

A Pleasant Surprise

When you’re applying for university in Australia you can change your course preferences between offer rounds even, if you’ve already received an offer. I was curious to see if I’d be able to get into the advanced nursing course because (I really didn’t think I would). So I changed my first preference to the Bachelor of Nursing (Advanced) course….and would you believe it – I got accepted!!

I am so grateful and excited for this opportunity but I am also quite nervous because it is going to be a lot of hard work to keep my Grade Point Average (GPA) at 5.5 or higher. I worked out a few different variations on the marks I need to keep my GPA high enough…. but basically I need to aim for distinctions (75-85) as a minimum to be safe.
It’s not all just about ‘more hard work’ though…you’re also allocated a mentor, who is one of the academics from the nursing department and, who will work with you throughout the degree. You’re also given great opportunities to go to workshops and seminars and to completw further research (beyond the degree) and encouraged to continue into an honours program.

The picture below is even more true now! Argh!! 🙂