A Day in the Life of a Nursing Student

Some days are easy. Some days are not. Sunday was one of those not so good days. Although I had started working on a paper that was due Monday days before, I still had a lot to do to finish it. I worked on it for two hours on the car drive to my grandma’s funeral, the two hours on the way back, and then till 5am in the morning. It definately was not something I wanted to do at that particular time, but that is the way life happens sometimes. Death comes at its own appointed time, regardless of our schedule or desires.

I share this to encourage you to fight through the hard times and finish the race. Graduation seems so far away, but it is just around the corner. Keep your head up and your eyes on the finish line. We have all come too far to let anything stand in our way. So jump over whatever hurdles come your way with confidence. As for my grandma, I know she would have been very happy to see me graduate. And that gives me motivation to continue and to do my very best. Keep shining everyone!

~Amanda

I had the opportunity to watch men’s wheelchair basketball at UW-Whitewater a few weekends ago. It was truly amazing to see the skill these men had. We talk about autonomy, and its importance in health care. I was reminded of this as I watched what happened each time one of the players was knocked over.

No one ran to their aid to help them get back up, no one even flinched. In fact, everyone just kept watching the game as if nothing had happened. Most of the time, they could get up on their own. When they couldn’t a teammate, or a member of the opposite team, would help them up.

Although the caring, nurse side of me wanted desperately to run out and help them, I knew that was not the right thing to do. I have worked with a few people who have a spinal cord injury. The greatest thing to see is the look of accomplishment on their face when they do something they didn’t think they could. I heard a quote this past weekend that really inspired me.

“The doctors saved my life. The nurses gave me my life back.”

-Anonymous

I just wanted to remind everyone about the suggestion folder on the Student Council Board in the hall next to A166. The Nursing Student Council is a group of nursing students that get together and discuss changes they would like to see in the program. If you have a suggestion you can write it down and leave it in the folder for the Student Council to discuss at their next meeting.

~Amanda

Hi first and second semester students! I was just wondering if my presentation, and handouts, are helpful to you. Do you have any comments or suggestions?
Thanks!

~Amanda

If you are looking for something to do while you are on the wait list, check out www.BSNatHOME.com. BSN at Home is an ADN to BSN program that partners with Eau Claire, Green Bay, Madison, Milwaukee, and Oshkosh UW campuses. If you are thinking of continuing on for your BSN, I would recommend setting up an appointment with a BSN at Home representative such as Rachel Merkel from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield (merkelrm@uwec.edu).

I was able to meet with Rachel to discuss classes I would need to take to get my bachelors degree, such as Chemistry and Statistics. The additional general education classes you need can be taken online or in person at various universities because they can be transferred. You can take these classes (like chemistry) while you wait to get into the core nursing classes here at MSTC. One interesting thing I learned is that some classes count as credits towards two or three categories.

General education categories include communications, natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, and etcetera. So a class focusing on the history of psychology may count towards both the social sciences and humanities categories. To see what the category, or categories, the class counts towards you can look it up on the UW credit transfer wizard at http://tis.uwsa.edu/wizards/geInstitutionList.do?reqType=G&clear=yes.

~Amanda

We had our first meeting of the semester! For those of you that have never gone, I suggest coming to a meeting. They have food, door prizes, and they hand out laminated quick reference cards. They have speakers come in all the time as well.

Our speaker this time was a former graduate. It was nice to hear from someone, who graduated here at MSTC, about what it is like after graduation. There was one thing she said that really stuck out to me. She described how nervous she would get before work the first couple months after starting her job.

I get those same feelings when I go to clinical! I get nervous thinking I will forget something, hurt someone, fall behind, do a skill wrong, or fail that week. But after listening to the speaker, I feel better knowing that I will eventually feel more confident and less anxious.

~Amanda