The Game

    Over these last 2 semesters of Nursing school I've come to the realization that half of your success here is to survive the game.  It's all a huge mind game really.  It happens before you even start the program.  Honestly handing you the required book list for the first semester is enough to do it.  Then they get you into a huge room full of other anxious nursing students and the anxiety begins to take hold of you.  Go into a room with 2 other Nursing students before an exam and I guarantee you'll need an Ativan by the time you walk out, it's contagious. Then they have the nerve to offer you "advice" from other students which in my case involved the following phrases: "this is the hardest thing you will ever do", "tell your family and friends good-bye, because you will never see them again... oh and they won't understand", and my favorite "just go ahead and buy some tissues because you are going to cry A LOT", and they repeat these phrases over and over like a bad Miley Cyrus song.  There are some encouraging words of "it's worth it, stick with it, you can do it if I can, blah blah blah", but the point has been won, and they've made into your brain.  Then the actual semester starts and you are bobbing along thinking "gosh this isn't so bad" and they smack you in the face with the first exam.  I still believe that some of the questions on these suckers they just completely make up with no fact base... I mean if you can't find it on Wikipedia it just isn't true.. right?  They break your will by having a silent, no paper allowed test review that involves just sitting staring at your failures (we use to ask questions but that has since been verbally beaten out of us).  As you walk out of class feeling defeated they remind you that this semester is NOTHING like the next semester, just prepare now.  So you begin to cultivate friends and support networks.  You not only study with this group, but you eat meals, gripe, cry, form deep connections with them.  They are sometimes the only thing that motivates you to push on and go to class.  So naturally this is the next target in this continuous game.  People stop coming to class, so the professors decide to wage an academic war and they make the decision to stop teaching, and increase the difficulty of the tests.  At this point people start to drop the class.  As the news gets out that another person has dropped it starts to get to you, but you feel fairly confident that you are alright because your support group seems to be doing fine.  Perhaps we are immune to this academic plague?  Then one of you begins to show the symptoms: frustration, fatigue, no matter how much you study you can't get your grade up, feeling hopeless.  You get a little nervous, you CAN'T lose this support, how on Earth are you going to make it without these people?  You begin to wonder if you are next?  You aren't doing as well as you thought you would.  It's just a community college come on!  Aren't you smarter then this.  I mean community college is just 13th grade, that's what everyone says at least.  What is wrong with you that this is kicking your butt?  At this point you hear those phrases again, "this is the hardest thing you will ever do", "they won't understand", "you are gonna cry", and you just sit down and lose it.  You mourn the loss of time (how did it get to be November? what is going on in that world outside of my desk?), you mourn the loss of your goal GPA (I understand how nerdy that sounded but hey... it happens), you mourn the loss of precious time you are missing with your family and friends outside of nursing school, and most of all you mourn the loss of your friends in nursing school.  It's just all too much.  Is this really worth it?  Can you really do this?  Is this game even win-able?  That's when you see the light.  The light that reminds you there is an end to this tunnel.  At the end of that light is a profession that is thankless and physically/emotionally demanding, but makes a difference in a life every single day.  Maybe the game does have a purpose, whether intended or not.  It's forcing you to toughen up, develop drive, but maintain compassion.  There will be battles and losses in this profession every day, b+ut we are following our hearts to learn to take care of people.  Isn't that what this is all about?  Taking care of people?  So today after an evening of feeling defeated I am picking myself back up, dusting myself off, and I'm starting my slow walk to win this game.