The Rewarding life of Nursing Students

The Rewarding life of
Nursing Students

It’s Not Just Difficult

By Elise Boyd | Friday, March 28th, 2025

Capturing all nursing students and anyone within the College of Public Health, this is your shoutout. Nursing students and healthcare professionals during school and throughout their careers not only learn about themselves, but how to help someone else’s life. What makes our career so special is that we not only save lives but also better them for long term thriving. Currently during our undergraduate college career, we learn about everything that can function in the human body and why. That is not only helping us understand why bodily functions happen or why they are important, but now we can finally apply the information in real life scenarios. We get the chance to maybe talk about a family member’s illness or create our own scenarios and how they can be fixed or what really goes on inside the human body. Overall, nursing students and those within the College of Public Health are amazing because we not only will forever have a job, but our job is to help people’s bodies and physical health blossom for a great life.

Besides the rewarding side of nursing students and those a part of the College of Public Health, there is also a reason why this major is not only appreciated but feared. Nursing school and health majors are difficult to grasp at first and may continue to be. It is an extremely competitive field seeing that taking the prerequisites are already a challenge, but then once you are accepted into your specific program things get even more challenging. Not only are there prerequisites and programs, but there is also clinical experience needed where you take what you learned in class and apply it to the real world which is definitely something that needs lots of training and critical thinking skills. This is all necessary because people studying and preparing for healthcare professions need to be trusted and are highly based on professionalism. Nursing programs and hospitals do not just choose anyone, so that competitive pool of applications is something that current students in the College of Public Health train and study hard for. It is not only about the complexities of a designated program but also applying those exams to real life that need exceeding balance. There is teamwork and collaboration, person-centered care, evidence-based practice, safety, and quality improvement. An important concept with nursing students is thriving which entails that students are not just performing great academics, but engaging in the learning process, creating ethical goals, and positively contributing to society. All this pressure can discourage many students and can make them feel that they are not good enough or do not belong here. However, once these students cross the finish line of hard work, determination, and dedication then the path of success and leadership is unlocked for a new and fulfilling journey.

Of course, with the not so pretty side to any major, but specifically Nursing and those within the College of Public Health, there is always a reason people stay for the experience. We get an awarding opportunity to go from a novice learner, advanced newbie, and then the confident expert. The learning process is difficult, but the ride down the path to success makes all the challenges worthwhile. Nursing students find more courage and excitement when they can apply all they have learned from exams they studied for hours, days, and weeks to apply in their clinical experience. Not only are we helping ourselves to be healthier, but other people who trust us to make them a better version of themselves that they can carry with them for as long as they’re supposed to. What seems like an endless journey of lack of motivation, self-consciousness, and confusion may always creep up on us, but once schooling has finished, now we can explore the healthcare field to see why our expectations are so high and why we are such respected people. With all that has been said, Nursing students and those within the College of Public Health learn and apply the ability to make a difference in someone’s life that they can cherish forever.

Sources:

“How Hard Is Nursing School? 5 Things You Should Know.” University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences, 17 Jan. 2020, www.usa.edu/blog/is-nursing-school-hard/.

Lundell Rudberg, Susanne, et al. “Undergraduate Nursing Students’ Experiences of Becoming a Professional Nurse: A Longitudinal Study.” BMC Nursing, vol. 21, no. 1, 2022, bmcnurs.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12912-022-01002-0, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-022-01002-0.

Mentag, Nicole Marie. “Experiences of Thriving Nursing Students.” Journal of Professional Nursing, vol. 41, July 2022, pp. 166–175, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.profnurs.2022.05.005.

Written by Elise Boyd
Edited by Justin Dodgion

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