
I am now finishing off the first semester of my first year as a nursing student. It has been exciting, stressful, and at the utmost a rewarding experience. I have learned many new basic nursing skills that have given me the confidence to enter into January clinical with a little less apprehension. The greatest opportunity I have had thus far is the chance to meet a lot of great people who have helped make this first semester an easier transition and my time more enjoyable. We have experienced all the ups and downs together and experienced the stress and hardships that come with being a first year nursing student. This has bonded us together and created a comradeship that hopefully will last us over the next four years and into our nursing careers. These connections are the very root of what helps a nursing student pass successfully through four hard years of stressful and many times emotional work. The ability to have someone there who knows what you are going through and who you can vent to or just simply laugh with when things just seem to hard is what keeps us going. I am grateful to have met so many caring and compassionate people. Maybe it is because this line of work draws a certain type of person in or maybe its the kind of work we do that connects us, but I find the friendships formed between nursing students is different from other programs I have experienced. I look forward to walking down the halls of the hospital in January with the support and comradeship of my fellow nursing students.