One more semester down, more lessons learned.

At the end of last semester I had an entry titled "Two down, three to go!" and now at the end of this semester I am excited to say that I only have TWO to go! This semester has absolutely flown by. I've also gotten much closer to some of my nursing friends and I can see this shift away from sorority sisters and towards nursing friends happening all the time. I'm really happy with the way my friendships are growing and changing lately, and it's so nice to be past that halfway point and to now be able to say that once this semester starts I will only have ONE left to go. Awesome.


I really enjoyed this semester. I liked both of my clinical rotations and instructors a lot. My instructor at Saint Mary's was great. Amy was young and had graduated from Grand Valley's nursing program, so she understood what we were going through. She also worked at Saint Mary's on the floor that we were on so she knew the ins and outs of the floor and she knew all the nurses. This was great because she was able to match us with nurses that would be good with students. She really made the rotation fun and comfortable and she helped us through everything without ever getting too frustrated with us :) My instructor at Ferguson, my mental health rotation, was Dave. He forced us out of our comfort zones and forced at to look at ourselves in a much harsher light in order to see our biases and our stereotypes. Because of him I was able to learn more about mental health than I ever thought would be possible from this rotation. He also taught me more about communication than I have ever learned from any other instructor or any other class. By learning to communicate with people with mental illness I can now feel much more comfortable talking to any patient that I will have in the future. I loved my experience at Ferguson, which is funny because at the beginning of the semester I thought I would HATE it. Funny how things change.

MY theory class was my only final this semester, which is funny to me too because I remember having 4 or 5 finals and freaking out and studying for weeks. Then I remember crying after my finals because I was sure I had failed and was NEVER going to get into nursing school. So needless to say, it's great to be where I am now. I didn't do as well on my final as I wanted so I'm still a little mad at myself for that because I only needed to get 2 more questions right to have gotten an A- instead of a B+ but hey, I guess I will get over it. And 351 is just credit/no credit so I'm good there :) I'm excited to move onto Nursing 420 and I will update more about that when I get there!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!