Classes I'm Taking in Semester #1
A huge thank you to Medelita for sending me the Emma Lab Coat! My school doesn’t provide lab coats so I’m so excited to wear this in the clinic + at school. I’m so in love with it! I’m wearing a size two. Get yours here.
A ton of you have been asking what my life will look like now that I’m a full-time grad student and a part-time nurse, running my own business, volunteering, helping my mom with her business. I mean, it’s a lot to take on and it is overwhelming, but I sort of thrive with structure and having this many responsibilities will force me to have structure. And for those of you who missed the first blog post where I explained why I chose FNP and the school I chose, read here!
This semester, I’m taking Advanced Health Assessment, Culture of Healthcare and Gerontological Nursing. I don’t start clinicals just quite yet, but the Advanced Health Assessment course does include a clinical portion where we have sim lab and validations, kind of like the foundations course in undergrad. All of my courses require us to meet face-to-face on campus at least once in a semester, and there is class at least once a week via WebEx which is considered distance-learning. I’ll have at least 1 quiz per week, readings, presentations, and various assignments.
Basically, I’ll be doing a lot of self-studying and studying with the few full-time peers I’ll have, but I don’t really mind that because lecture was never really my favorite thing in the world. My most demanding course will definitely be Advanced Health Assessment, as we’ll be learning various health assessment skills, such as pelvic exams and head to toe beyond what we know already as RNs. My professors seem great and I look up to my advisor so much. She’s a professor, has her own practice in New York, and the president of a prestigious APRN organization - can you say #bossbabe!?
My classes are Mondays and Wednesdays, which can be kind of annoying with also working night-shift, even if it’s 2 shifts a week now as a part-time staff RN. This means that I still have to work 2 weekends a month and every 3rd Friday, so it also means that time spent with normal schedule people aka my husband/family/non-nurse friends will be limited. I’m still trying to figure out the best consistent schedule, but for now I’m just gonna try my best to avoid working a night before class or an exam. I’ll survive.
But the really cool thing about going to school at Georgia State is that I live 4 minutes from a MARTA station and 40 minutes later, I’m dropped off exactly onto campus. I’m so grateful that I don’t have to deal with traffic. And you all have heard me complain plenty about Atlanta traffic.. Oh wait, did I ever tell you guys about my interview? I left the house more than an hour early and because of traffic and parking, I walked in 1 minute before my scheduled interview time. I was huffing and puffing and so rushed, I hated every moment. So MARTA it is!
It’ll be an adjustment getting used to studying constantly again because I got used to spending my free time by watching Netflix, reading for fun, etc. But I’ll just have to make time for those things now and make sacrifices. Something I feel like I’m going to have to remind myself is that this is all temporary. That there is an end. So while I have the chance, I’m going to give it my absolute all so that I don’t ever look back and regret time spent whining or complaining or whatever.
Also, let’s talk scholarships:
My parents always taught me that if I don’t ask, the answer is no. So I applied to every scholarship I qualified for. In fact, I have an interview tomorrow for a scholarship I applied for within my hospital. I think it’s just a matter of putting yourself out there as much as you can, and realizing that if you did your best, your all, then that's all you can control. If it works out in your favor, cool. And if it doesn’t, then you know you did everything you could and whatever happened is out of your control.
I’m paying for grad school by working really hard with my blog + business, decreasing business expenses and paying myself less, decreasing personal expenses such as shopping for clothes, and picking up call shifts whenever I can. The plan is to fund my education directly from business profits alone. This means however much money I make with a brand deal or sponsored post per month, I’ll save some and pay myself (member distribution) the cost of the monthly payment I need to make on my tuition per month. However, it all also depends on how much money in scholarships I’ll be able to get! Who knows, maybe I won’t have to pay a single dime. And if I get lucky and get hired as a graduate assistant, I can even have the school pay full-tuition for me + a stipend.
So there’s kind of a brain dump of what I’ve been thinking + feeling recently. It doesn’t really feel real. It still doesn’t feel solidified yet, but I’m sure it will once I start reading for class tomorrow. One thing that I’m realizing though, is that I’ll really have to visualize and write down my commitments and prioritize those. For example, Caleb and I watched the 3hr Bachelor premiere. It was so much fun!! But that’s the kind of thing that won’t be a priority once school starts. And the Youtube videos I want to watch will slowly start to pile up.. The time I scroll in IG will start to decrease (which is a good thing, really), and my weekends will mostly be full of studying. But like I said.. this is temporary. And it’s really just beginning.
Oh! And my approved vacation week at work is the same week of Spring Break for school! How convenient is that!? It’s also our first wedding anniversary. I’m already looking forward to that so much as we road trip to Atlanta -> Charleston -> Savannah -> St. Augustine. Leave your restaurant recommendations down below!
I also hope to take a more educational stance on my blog + Instagram as I go through my FNP program. It felt a little directionless for a while there, probably because I myself felt a little directionless, but that’s just the flow of life I guess.
If you have any questions, please leave them below! If you want a detailed reply, please email me at hello@nurse-clara.com and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. If you sent me a DM and haven’t gotten a reply, please email me :)
xo,
Clara