Starting a new chapter in your life is very difficult to do, but also extremely rewarding and exciting. I think I am most excited to feel in control of my own life and job and all of the choices I have. During nursing school you need to learn everything you can about nursing as a whole, but I’m excited to have my choice of my speciality and my choice of where I decide to work. I think that is something that is extremely exciting for a new grad because it is a new start to a new portion of our lives. The biggest celebration I will have will be for graduating. Graduating is such a huge milestone for everyone but I will be the first child in my family to have graduated college, and that in itself is a huge accomplishment. I will be celebrating by spending time with my friends and family and the people who helped me get through school all this time.
Even though starting a new chapter is a fresh start, it is also very nerve racking. Even though I am excited about starting a new life for myself, it can also be scary. Knowing that everything I do is in my own hands and my decisions can always affect what happens to me in the future is a lot of pressure to put on myself. I am the most anxious about taking the NCLEX. I have not always been known to be a great test taker and that scares me, but I think by using the SMART goals throughout this semester and the summer that I will be able to properly prepare myself for the NCLEX.
The way I will do this is by starting in the summer after this semester and allowing myself to read through at least 20 pages of my NCLEX book a week and answer questions. If I don’t do as well, I will double them the next week with the same questions and make sure I am able to master them before I take the NCLEX or before the first week in August. One thing that did help me already with this journey is the ATI nurse logic modules. These helped me because they helped me notice what type of questions I need to work on rather than the question itself. I think this will help me a lot in the future when I am studying to focus on which questions I need help answering that don’t have anything to do with content and have more to do with the answering of questions.
