REFLECTION: MY FIRST DAY AS A NURSING STUDENT

Reflection: My First Day As a Nursing Student

Kim Nguyen Ho

Practical Nursing, Fanshawe College

NRSG 1014 - PROFESSIONAL NURSING PRACTICE I

Professor Erin Slager

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Reflection: My First Day As a Nursing Student

Normally, the first day of nursing students will be on orientation day where they can meet

many other classmates and walk around the college. However, my first day as a nursing student

was different because I missed the first week, including the orientation day, so the first day I

came to college was on Monday of the following week. Luckily, I had lab class on that day so I

could wear scrubs, which is my dream uniform as I always imagine the first day I wear it in

class. Therefore, my feeling before going to school in scrubs was excitement mixed with

nervousness.

When I came to class, the first person I met was Professor L and I was impressed by her

positive and warm energy when she welcomed each student. Then I recognized that I was

standing in a fully furnished lab room with many mannequins and equipment, which made me

feel enthusiastic and worried at the same time because I had waited for this moment a year ago

when I was still in my Pre-health course and I knew that my nursing journey would start at that

moment. After that, my professor told everyone to introduce themselves to break the ice between

students. The student surprised me most is M who is the mother of four kids.

When it came to M’s turn, everyone looked at M with expected faces and I thought the

reason for this situation was that M had tired-looking eyes and tangled hair. After her

introduction, I admired her a lot because she is nearly the age as my mom and she has four kids,

but she still chases her dream of being a nurse. Her youngest child is still a baby, so she had to

take care of him the whole night and she felt really tired at the lab class. She told us that she had

a dream to be a nurse since she was still a little girl, but because of personal problems, she had to
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temporarily put her dreams aside and did another job. Our professor empathized with M so much

because she also has two kids and she knows how hard it is to raise 4 kids at the same time.

In hindsight, I would revise my initial outlook on the first day. After the conversation

with my classmates, I think that nursing is not only a career but also a life journey and it is never

too late to start this journey. I can start it at the age of 19 but anyone else can start at their 30s,

40s or even 50s and that does not matter because we all have the same goal to take care of our

future patients.

Looking back on my first day of nursing school, I really appreciate the friendliness and

the connection of my classmates and professor. I also know that my dream just starts and there

are still a lot of challenges and new things ahead for me to achieve. I realized that nurses,

regardless of how long they have been in the profession, don't know everything, and that's fine

because every day we learn something new; if we don't know something, we look for it. Even if

we can't look for it ourselves, we can still use people around us as a source. And on this journey,

I am not alone, I am with my friends and professors so we all try our best together.
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Reference

Ashipala, D. O., & Natanael, S. (2022). Experiences of nursing students who are mothers in

balancing their dual roles in undergraduate nursing and Midwifery Education: A

phenomenological study. International Journal of Africa Nursing Sciences, 17, 100447.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijans.2022.100447

My First Day Of Nursing School. (2021, September 01). Edubirdie

https://edubirdie.com/examples/my-first-day-of-nursing-school/