Bianca Morales

November 14, 2020

Final Analysis

The light at the end of the tunnel. Those words have been ringing in my ears since the

start of this last semester. Friends, colleagues and family members have said this to me over and

over again as I continued through this semester. I have waited and longed for this day. The day,

where I graduate from nursing school. These past three years have been filled with so memories

that I will cherish for the rest of my life. There is so much to be grateful for and as I reflect on

this time, I am able to look at my growth throughout this experience. I have acquired skills and

knowledge (and a couple gray hairs!), that I will continue to foster in my career as a Registered

Nurse. I am a child of two immigrants who will be the first to complete a Bachelor’s degree. I

am graduating with honors, magna cum laude and as an officer of Alpha Phi Omega’s service

fraternity. I got engaged, became an aunt, bought a house, and lived through so many

experiences throughout nursing school. It has been an incredible ride where I have been able to

grow, and learn from myself. I have garnered strengths that I never knew I had and was able to

use them in nursing school. Through literal sweat and tears, I was able to finish feeling confident

in my ability to learn and grow.

Before starting nursing school, I began working as Patient Care Tech in an Intensive Care

Unit where I was able to determine whether nursing was really what I wanted before going to

nursing school. I have been on this unit for almost 4 years now and have never regretted my

decision. Due to this experience, I knew I wanted to do critical care. I was fortunate enough to

get placed in the ICU for my immersion experience and it has solidified my desire to work in

critical care. I have acquired so many skills in nursing school that I seek to expand and improve

on but have learned so much in all my clinical and practicum sites. My second semester junior
year is when things really “clicked” for me. I began noticing, and making connections between a

patient’s diagnosis, treatment and symptoms. I learned so much that semester and our professor’s

high expectations of her students definitely inspired the amount of growth and learning I did that

semester. This semester and through our Immersion experience, I have begun to feel more

confident in my skills as nursing student and feel as though my experience has laid the

foundation for me to begin as new graduate.

I am confident that have so much learning to do but feel that my strengths will help me

achieve my goals as a nurse. I have acquired and maintained certain skills that I believe will help

me in my journey. My ability to stay calm under stress, adaptability and desire to learn as much

as I can will hopefully help me in my career as a nurse. I have worked on my ability to stay calm

under stress as it is something I was not always good at. Experience and talking with certain

nurse mentors has helped gain this skill. My adaptability I can only claim as inheritance to being

a child of immigrants and speaking two languages growing up. I have consistently had to code

switch all throughout my life, alternating between English and Spanish in and out of the home. I

wasn’t sure how this would help me in my life when I was younger but as I have grown older I

have noticed the impact it has had on my personality, experience and perspective. I have used

this skill to be able to adapt to many different situations and hope to use this skill in nursing. My

desire to learn as much as I can, is what lead me to nursing in the first place. Nursing is so

multifaceted and the learning is endless. We are life-long learners and that is was drew me to

nursing.

There are so many areas of growth that I still have yet to do. Prioritization and time

management are both areas which I hope to grow and improve on as I start my new job. They are

skills that can be improved through practice but also through observation of those around you. I
will hopefully find a nurse mentor at my new job that can help hone in on those skills and

improve what I already know. These skills are important to me as they can only help improve a

patient’s care and safety on a unit.

Throughout nursing school, I have made friendships that will last me a lifetime. I met this

group of friends on my first day of school and formed a study group. I will never forget the

promise we made to each other that we would help, support and aide each other so we could all

finish together. Here we are, finishing all together just as we promised. So many struggles, hard

work and dedication have all culminated to this moment. I can’t believe it’s over. I hope to keep

up with all my professors that have changed my nursing school career. They will never know

what an impact they have had on all of us. I can’t wait to graduate next month and begin my

career as a Registered Nurse.