It almost does not feel real that we are in our last semester of senior year. In six months, it is likely that myself and many, of my classmates will have sat for our boards and will be starting work as registered nurses. Everyone has always told me that college flies by but until now, sitting here reflecting on what I’m excited about, I never really saw how fast everything has gone by. I think the thing I am most excited about is seeing all the hard work and sacrifices pay off. For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a nurse and have never seen myself in a different profession and to be so close to achieving that goal is so exciting. At the same time though it makes me anxious. All I have known for the past 18 years is school and while the prospect of finally being done is so exciting, it is also terrifying because of the unknown. It is such a weird feeling to be at the point in life where the goals I have always been working toward are about to be achieved. It leaves me with this feeling of what now, where do I go from here? It is almost like as soon as I get excited thinking about being done, the anxiety creeps in and takes that excitement away. It is one of the weirdest feelings to try and explain. Ultimately though I think the excitement wins and with achieving my goals comes the opportunity to set new ones and continue to grow not only as a person but also as a professional. Another thing I’m excited about is making my parents proud. They have been such a strong support system for me threw out my life and always pushed me to do my best so I cannot wait to see the pride on their faced when I graduate. The only way I really want to celebrate is just hanging out with my family and having a nice dinner and just relax and be together. I had originally planned on taking a trip after passing my NCLEX but in this day and age I don’t really think traveling will be an option. That being said I still can’t think of a better way of celebrating than being with the people who helped me get to this point in my life. 

I have never been a super organized person in the way that I tend to only looks at things on a week to week basis. By that I mean I never write out all my due dates and plan out what needs to be done in advance. I also usually sit down on the weekends and say I am going to do work all day and end up not getting anything done and get distracted because I am overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. This semester though, there is an overwhelming amount of assignments and dates that are important. After having all the classes and seeing all that needs to be done, I decided that I was going to change things up and be more organized. I made the goal that I was going to write all my assignments out and know what is due and set up a schedule for when I would get this stuff done. As I have started tackling work, I have been checking off the things that are finished and moving on to the next task. Although this semester is crazy busy, I also wanted to allow myself some time to relax and recharge, so my work was still at its best. This led me to the idea that on weekends I will wake up at around 0900 and do work until no later than 1500 and then give myself the rest of the day to relax and recharge without feeling guilty for not doing work. I think these goals will help me to succeed this semester and also make it, so I am accountable to myself. It is so easy to get overwhelmed in nursing school, but I am hoping my new organization and almost set schedule to work will allow me to fell not only successful but also give me the needed time for myself and to recharge. 

As I have been writing this response, I have been taking the Nurse Logic 2.0 Modules. Going through the lessons, I was remembering the first time I went through them and noticing how much more I was gaining from them now with more overall nursing knowledge than I had first time around. For example in the first module about nursing and clinical judgement I remember thinking at the time that I learned best through reading, while this is still true, I now know that that I also retain the information so much better when I get to physically put it in practice or at least have a contextually understanding of information. Although that is only an example from one of the modules, I found that throughout them all I was understanding the importance of the information in a different way. What was being  said about critical thinking and analyzing information, as well patient education and overall test taking strategy was more applicable and useful when it came time to take the tests. While the lessons themselves where helpful, I also enjoyed the taking the tests. These where the first nursing style questions I have looked at since the end of last semester. I found that with the first module I was struggling to answer because I was not using the skills and analyzing the questions in the way I usually do. After the first couple questions I got back into the mind set and really started to take my time and look at what the question was asking. I also found that some of the time I would over think a question and change my answer. This was mostly because I was looking deeper into the question than what it was asking. I always think that the questions are trying to trick me and that they are way more complicated than I originally think so I will change my answer. Making my way through the modules, I found that for the most part, questions were straightforward and that if I just read the words in the question carefully and didn’t assume additional information than I was better off. Overall, I learned from these modules different ways of looking at information and knowing what works best for myself as well as ways to answer a question even if I am not 100% on the information. Going forward with ATI assignments as well as NCLEX I know that I need to take my time and not rush through things and make sure I completely understand what the question is looking for and that answer is not only factually correct but also with what is best for the patient and what their needs may be.