EXAMS COMPLETE!

I am finished with nursing school!  No more classes, no more exams, no more assignments...it's all turned in, completed...just waiting on grades to be finalized in Blackboard.  And of course ~GRADUATION~ in 6 days.

Job front: I've applied for 4 jobs, 1 went to one of my classmates (she's a CNA on that unit...understandable), the other 3 have made it through HR and have gone on to the respective unit managers.  So...I wait until I get a phone calls for an interviews.

BUT...I don't have any more work to do while I wait.  I can sit and watch TV!  I can read a non-textbook!  I can get my crate full of textbooks and binders and folder and notebooks put away somewhere else!  I'M FREE!!

:-)

Classes DONE!

Even though the university doesn't end classes until sometime in December, I have attended my LAST EVER BSN nursing class.  I hesitate to say last ever college class, in the event I lose my mind and go for an MSN at some point...but thinking about that right now...a snowball has a better chance in hell.  I digress...

But yes!  Final class over!  I *technically* have one more class meeting, but it's to take our 4th critical care exam and then review for the cumulative final.  No new content, no additional concepts, and I don't know that it's even mandatory.  I'll go, just to get as much of an edge for the final as possible, and in the odd event she decides to take attendance or something.

I have 20 more days of academic responsibilities THEN I AM DONE, FINISHED, SCHOOL IS OVER. YAY!!

Graduation in 26 days!

Semester grades are official

It's on the transcript -- my first 4.0 semester in nursing school!

My cumulative GPA is now the highest it's been since I started at my program, a 3.71.  I'm really happy with that.  Now if I can keep it for one more semester...

Not much else going on...just been stalking blackboard and the online transcript service to verify grades. OB was the last one to post earlier this afternoon. I got my rented textbooks sent back in, got my transcript printed and ready to turn in to the hospital PTB so they can give me my final semester of tuition money, and got my books and notes for this past semester all organized and filed away.  All that's left is to wait until my externship starts.

Until then, I continue enjoying the break and doing the little things that I hadn't been able to do during the school year (like clean my house...)

Later  :-)

Last day of 3rd semester

And I am now on my summer break!  It's a very welcome feeling to not have studying or schoolwork hanging over me and to not have to deal with it until August.

It's been a long semester and I'm just glad it's over.  What was, in my mind, supposed to be a great semester, turned out to be not so great.  Ironically, I've done the best, grade-wise, that I ever have since starting at my nursing school, but getting there was tough, almost impossible.  And while that sounds like I might be exaggerating, I'm really not.  I can't go into great details in the event people affiliated with my school read this, but I will say that nursing school is hard enough on its own, much less when an instructor does her best to keep you from getting an A.  I ended up with the A (barely), but an A is an A.  And this one was a hard-fought A.  Plus it got me a 4.0 this semester, which I'm thrilled about. This is my first 4.0 since I was taking my pre-reqs a couple years ago, and anyone who's been in nursing school knows that a 4.0 semester is a pretty big deal.

So I'm now off for a couple weeks before I go in for 2 days of hospital orientation and then 2 days of extern orientation, 7:45-4:00 every day.  At least I get paid  :-)  Ahh, that's going to be fantastic...getting a paycheck of my own after 10 years being a stay-at-home mama.  Granted my salary this summer will be going toward paying my tuition next semester, with anything left over going for books and such, but still.  My work, my paycheck.

I also have to finish getting my scrubs for this summer.  We were told student nurse externs wear navy and white, either solid navy, solid white, or a mix.  Umm, yeah, I'm going with solid navy.  I have one pair of scrub pants, because the scrub shop here happened to have only 1 pair in my size when I was in there recently, but I need another one yet.  Plus a couple scrub tops, and I'm quite the girl when I'm excited that I get to choose girlish scrub tops -- ones with a feminine shape rather than the unisex feedsack-looking shape (like our school scrub tops).

So...no more pencils, no more books...  And a couple weeks to chill before my externship starts.  That works for me  :-)

For those still slogging through final exams...good luck!  And those lucky enough to be graduating soon...congrats!

Later

Officially finished with 2nd semester!

So I was finished with finals a week ago...but the grades are now posted, so I consider that official.  Mental Health - A (98%...BOOYAH!), Research Methods - A, Med-Surg - B.  Wish I could have gotten that 3rd A, but all things considered, I'll live with the B.

And by all things considered, I take into account that our program offers Med-Surg as one class, in one semester, for 8 credit hours.  I sat in lecture for 3 hours on Mondays and 2 hours on Wednesdays, clinical for 6-7 hours on Tuesdays, in addition to the 10-15 hours each week I spent on clinical work (pre-clinical prep, post-clinical worksheets, care plans, and journals) and the lots of hours of reading the textbooks and ATI chapters.  And the fact that 3 of our 16 class members did not pass Med-Surg and will not be moving on with us to 3rd semester.  :-(  So hell class from hell, plus some classmates not doing so well...that B I got is acceptable.

So I guess I'm officially a 3rd semester nursing student!  I'm a college senior!  Again!

I'm on break until January 9th...nothing school-related that needs to be done.  Well, other than seek out and order textbooks and hound Blackboard to find out what I need to pre-read before classes start.  But that's nothing new.  It honestly feels really strange to have nothing to do, school-wise.  Since August I have been spending hours on end doing something - reading, writing careplans, looking up drugs, writing up study guides, memorizing lab values or toxicity levels - and to quit cold turkey is kinda weird.  I'll be sitting in my recliner and kind of panic, thinking that I should be doing something...but then I realize I don't have to.  I think I'm traumatized or something.  PTSD r/t recently completed semester of nursing school aeb random moments of panic from feeling like reading, studying, or learning content needs to be taking place.

So while I'm doing nothing, I may not be around here much either.  Not that that's a huge change from when I was in school.  My poor bloggit- blog has gotten neglected the past few months  :-(  But those in nursing school or who've been in nursing school...y'all know that's perfectly normal.  Nursing school consumes your life.

On that note, good luck to those who are still working on finishing up another semester...congrats to all those who are finished with another semester...SUPER CONGRATS to those are graduating!  And if I'm not back before then...have a very Merry Christmas!!

Later gators  :-)

I officially survived my first semester!

Took my last exam this morning -- Fundamentals of Nursing ATI exam -- so now I am off for the summer.  A huge weight has been removed from my person and I can now do things like sleep, sit and not have to think, rest my brain cells, and did I mention sleep?  I'm also hoping my cortisol levels drop back to the normal range so I can quit looking at myself in the mirror expecting to see a moon face and a buffalo hump.  OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration...but still.

My grades...I have 1 officially confirmed A, 1 more A that hasn't been officially confirmed but is indeed an A, 1 expected A that might swing back down to a B..but I'm thinking it's an A, and 1 B that might possibly swing up to an A..but I'm thinking it's a B (edited to add: officially confirmed, it's a B).  Would have like that 4.0, but 3 A's and 1 B is not shabby. That'll get me on the Dean's List, and considering one of the A's is a 6 credit hour class, that should bump my GPA up nicely.

Major plans for the summer?  Not thinking about anything school-related until late July...well, once I get past confirming my grades, that is.  Also looking forward to reading (other than books having to do with assessment, community health, fundamentals of nursing, drug dosage calculations, nursing diagnoses, etc.), giving full attention to TV/movies, doing things with my kids, spending time with my friends, cleaning/de-cluttering my house (well, maybe not that one so much)...basically all the things I haven't done since January.  I've been hearing enough people talk about "Mad Men" that I'm curious to see what it's all about...so I got the Season 1 DVD's from the library and plan to start watching them.  If nothing else, I can look at the gorgeous Jon Hamm for awhile!  :-)

I'm already registered for next semester -- Adult Health (med/surg), Mental Health, and Nursing Research for EBP (I think that's the formal title).  Somewhat looking forward to Adult Health in that we'll be doing 8-hour clinicals with rotations in ICU, ER, and various other med/surg areas...but the downfall is care plans will be due every week.  BLECH!  I got a 98 on this semester's care plan, so apparently I know what to do, I just don't really wanna have to do it every week.

The high from rocking my ATI exam this morning -- Level 3!!  Awesome!! -- is starting to wear off and the sucky non-pattern of 2-3 fragmented hours of sleep the past few nights is making itself known...in other words, my eyes are getting very heavy and I'm start to feel like I've taken a muscle relaxer or some other sedating kind of medication.  Before I start typing gibberish, I think it might be time for me to wrap this up and maybe catch a quick bit of sleep.

Hope everyone is rocking the end of their semester!