I have been given this great opportunity by my friends at StressedOutNurses.com to let other nursing students and nurses hear all about my last semester of nursing school. Here goes: My name is Chelsea. I am a 21-year-old senior at a small liberal arts college just outside of Boston, MA. During the next 14 weeks-the last 14 weeks of college for me-I’m going to give you a sense of how I am feeling and what is going on during this crazy and hectic time. I want you, the readers, to be there with me as I am preparing to take the NCLEX and when I am filling out applications for “real” jobs.

Right now, I am home on Christmas break (my last one ever!), working at a local hospital in my hometown. But as the break has been winding down, I have been finding myself very anxious. It’s not that I don’t want to go back; it’s just the fact that I am graduating on May 18th. Graduating college! It is so scary to think that I am going to be a real registered nurse in about four months. Do I know enough? Are patients and other nurses going to like me? Am I going to stink as a nurse? Questions like these are running through my head constantly as I prepare to go back to school.

And this semester is going to be crazy! I have classes only on Mondays (which is a miracle in itself), but the rest of the week is devoted to my preceptor-clinical experience. I was lucky enough, through all my hard work over these three years, to earn a spot in a specialty setting. I am on a maternity floor at a prestigious Boston hospital. I am more than excited. I can’t wait to get into it and act like a nurse. I have 160 hours to complete throughout the semester, and I want to finish them as soon as possible so I am going to work between 28 and 30 hours a week. Eventually, I will be taking a full patient load and that scares me to death.

But sometimes there are certain moments that solidify my passion for this profession. Sometimes there are moments like this one: During this winter break at work, I took care of a 95-year-old man.

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