Nursing Schools: Tips From The Inside
Nursing school is highly demanding. It reflects the reality of a career in nursing: those who can survive the program can make it in the workplace. I'm a nursing student, set to graduate from the LVN program in August 2007. I go to class evenings and weekends to accomodate my current working hours. It's frustrating, difficult and tiring, but it's magical, too. If you can afford to go to school full-time and not work, that is definitely easier. However, you can survive doing both. You'll be deprived of both sleep and social life for two years, but it can be done.
In order to work in the medical field, you must have hands on experience. From my personal experience and from monitoring my own students, just about everyone would agree that despite intellectual understanding and formal medical knowledge of what's happening, you must have had hands on experiences with real life patients in order to truly be a successful nurse. Using inanimate props such as mannequins in order to assess, dispense injections, insert catheters, and etc just doesn't amount to much as it doesn't completely simulate what it's really like to work with an actual live patient. Depending on the procedure being done, there's no good or bad patient feedback available.
It's crucial and very much recommended for you to gather and analyze a list of Nursing Schools that you are interested in enrolling, as well as narrowing down fields of nursing you are considering. Make a note of your priorities and what you would like to accomplish. Will being a LVN be sufficient for what you're looking for? Are there other careers in nursing that you would do better in?
You have to verify if the private Nursing Schools have the accreditation you need if you want to branch into other Nursing Careers later down the road. Does that program give you an AA or BS? Does it give you a state-specific license only? What credits can be transferred to a community college or to a university if you choose to go onto a Bachelor's or Master's degree?
One more thing to consider is cost. Private nurse schools are easier to get into, but they usually cost more than a public college. I was oblidged to choose this option since my local public college as a long waiting list for the RN program, lasting up to 2011! I had to spend more to be trained in an acceptable time limit.
And finally, I would like to offer one suggestion-- sign up for the tour and perhaps try out being a student for the day. Attend a class and make an effort to interact with teachers and other students in order to get a good feel of the type of environment the school offers. This will give you a good idea of what it'll be like for the next two years that you'll be attending the school. With this experience, you may even decide that it's not for you. Take note of the pace and structure of teaching and decide whether it's suited to how you learn. Also pay attention to the staff; are they helpful? Judging the environment earlier on will give you a glimpse on how satisfied you will be once you enroll.
Published February 27th, 2007
