I recently had the opportunity to sit down with two of my roommates who are in UNCW’s nursing program. April Thompson is a senior from Efland, NC and Alexis Abraham is a junior from Raleigh, NC. Both were kind enough to answer all of my questions about the ins and outs and ups and downs of being a student in the nursing program.
HC: Broadly, what does being in the nursing program entail?
April: You put your life on hold and any social aspects you have. And you’re there because you want to be there, not because someone forced you to be there. It’s a privilege to get in the program because it’s so difficult, so when you’re in you put all you have into it.
Alexis: It’s a total priority change. It’s family, then school, then friends, maybe. So a lot of priority changes, and then I feel like I really learned how to study and prioritize.
HC: What do you do in the nursing program each year (freshman through senior)?
April: Freshman year, you take a lot of your basics–your sciences. You have to get all A’s in those courses to even be considered.
Alexis: And whenever you finish your general credits is when you can apply to the program.
April: So it’s a five semester program and you can start it whenever because they accept in spring and in fall. And they accept 50 people every application period.
HC: So, how many people usually apply?
Alexis: It depends on the year, but probably around 150 to 200.
Alexis (pictured left) with fellow nursing students.
HC: What is your favorite thing about being in the nursing program?
Alexis: I like working with the patients. And you’re working under someone, so if you make a mistake they’re there to fix it and to help you out. Rarely does that happen, but you feel a lot more comfortable, and it eases you in. I really like that.
April: The professors are there to help you, and you can tell they’re there to help you. They care that you succeed. Not that other professors from other majors don’t, but the nursing professors tell you personal experiences of trial-and-error for them, which makes you feel better and not as inexperienced as you may seem.
HC: What is your least favorite thing?
Alexis: Sometimes I think a lot of the teacher’s don’t coordinate the tests very well, like the timing, because sometimes they all end up in the same week. My first semester, we had simulations in the lab and they would be so nerve wracking. Then when you were done it was just like, “why was I so worried about it?” But I think a lot of the professors kind of scare you into thinking you have to do really, really well on the sims.
April: Yeah, just the amount of work. Some of it seems like busy work. And others you’re like I did actually learn something from it, but every teacher has different teaching styles.
Example of a simulation, where students get the opportunity to practice techniques on computer-controlled “patients.”
HC: What are clinicals? Where do you do them?
April: It depends on the clinical. So you start your first semester and you have one clinical. You have 6 or 7 weeks in that and it’s more low-key, you’re just helping them out, getting bathed, getting dressed, whatever. And you have all the way up to your senior year where you’re dealing with people on ventilators and people with more complex issues. So it depends where you’re at in the program. And you do them all over in the area. So you could drive 45 minutes to Jacksonville for a clinical. That’s how it is for a lot of them.
Alexis: New Hanover, too. That’s where I’ve been. I’ve been fortunate because I’m there a lot. Our clinicals are so different every year. You start off in long term care and then move all the way up to, in your capstone course, working in the ICU [Intensive Care Unit]. Right now I’m in gerontology, psych mental health, and OB [Obstetrics]. They’re very different. You get a little taste of everything to see what you like, which is good.
HC: Describe what it’s like working in a hospital.
Alexis: At first, it was my first moment of feeling like I’m nurse, even though I’m not really a nurse yet. But it was kind of like, “Wow, this is what I’m going to be doing for the rest of my working life.” It’s stressful because there are a lot of noises and a lot of people running around doing stuff, and you don’t really know who’s who. Overall, it’s really an exciting experience, especially when you first start out.
April: It’s a little stressful, but then you get more comfortable with the people on the floor. Then when you get to know where things are on the unit, when you need something you don’t have to constantly run to someone and ask, “Where is this? Where is that? What does this OR [Operating Room] mean? Is he dying? Is he awake? Like, I don’t know.” So it’s nerve wracking but once you get to your senior year you feel like you know a little bit. You don’t really know anything, but you know a tiny little bit of what you’re supposed to know.
HC: What’s your most interesting or exciting experience from having been in the nursing program so far?
Alexis: I had a 100-year-old patient. That was my very first patient in the nursing home, and she was pretty much fully functional. I didn’t have to do anything, and, this sounds bad, but I would pretty much just have conversations with her. I wouldn’t do any assessments; I would just watch TV with her and talk to her, while all the other kids in my cohort were giving baths and everything. I just chilled and watched TV.
April: This semester I got to do a cardioversion on someone, which stops the heart and shocks them, taking them out of their dysrhythmia, whatever type it is, and puts them back in a normal sinus rhythm. And the nurse let me press the button for it, and the man comes up off the table and his eyes pop open even though he’s sedated. Then he relaxes, but you could see his rhythm changed from his atrial fibrillation to his sinus rhythm. So I thought that was pretty cool. Even though I didn’t do a lot that day, I pressed the button and the man came off the table and it was cool that I could change his rhythm from that intervention.
Alexis: Yeah, that’s so cool.
April (fourth in from left) with fellow nursing students.
HC What’s the biggest challenge being a nursing student?
Alexis: Finding time for yourself and not going insane. I really struggle with making sure I set aside time for myself. Once I got into nursing school, I was like I have to make sure I take care of myself, because if I don’t then how am I going to take care of my patients?
April: As you go through the program, you still have other classes you have to take, like your basic studies, and the school doesn’t accommodate for you. You make time where you can, but they’ll just randomly add classes in places that we don’t normally have class. Like, we’ll sign up for a basic ed class and have to miss it. The nursing program and the gen ed classes overlap, and we have no choice but to miss it. We just have to explain our situation to the gen ed professors.
Alexis: They make it really difficult to graduate on time.
April: Yeah, the way the college, in general, sets it up makes it difficult. I can understand that they can’t work around 50 schedules, but at the same time they need to let us know ahead of time. Which, they’ve gotten a little bit better at letting us know senior year with giving us important dates where we have to be there, have to be present. But majority of the time they don’t work with us at all.
HC: How much studying do you have to do to keep up?
April: When you’re not doing something, you feel bad because you know there’s probably something you should be doing.
Alexis: You don’t know how to relax.
April: You don’t relax, and you constantly think of things that need to get done.
HC: Do you guys have really thick textbooks, too?
Alexis: Oh, yes.
April: They weigh, like, 5 or 10 pounds
Alexis: I keep most of mine, too. Because a lot of them, if you need them, are fundamentals, which is our first nursing class. You pretty much need it throughout nursing school because teachers will refer back to it. So you have to keep that, and keep another book from another class. You keep all the ones that you think you’re going to need.
HC: If you had to describe the nursing program in one word, what would it be?
Alexis: Rewarding.
April: Exhilarating.
HC: Any advice for students thinking about applying to the nursing program?
April: Be serious about it, because it’s not a joke. Everyone that’s in it that hasn’t progressed either drop down a cohort or drop out completely by the first semester. Most of the people that apply are very privileged to get in and stay in.
Alexis: We had four people drop out of it. One person only made it one day and was just like “Nope!” I felt bad for all the people that didn’t get in that worked so hard. I would suggest making sure you know this is what you want before you get into it, because otherwise it’s a whole big waste of time and money.
April: You have to love it, because if you don’t love it and don’t love caring for people, you’re going to hate the profession.
HC: What are your plans after graduation or what do you hope to be doing?
April: Working in a step down unit, which is more like an ICU setting. Not right off the surgery table, but more like they’ve come back out of surgery, post-op, and we’re trying to get them better so they can go home. You see more of a progression in a progressive care unit than someone who’s in ICU. I think I want to do that and work in the Raleigh or Durham area.
Alexis: I really like pediatrics, so that’s an option. Neo-natal intensive care, with babies, or OB. That’s really fun. And eventually I want to see, hopefully, if wherever I work they’ll pay for me to go back to school to get my Master’s degree and be a nurse practitioner. But we’ll see!
The UNCW Nursing Program is housed in McNeil Hall. You can find additional information about the program on their homepage.
Photos courtesy of April and Alexis.