RESOURCES

• It's very important that you know how your brain naturally processes information. Once you know, study using your strengths and improve your weak areas along the way.
• Knowing how you learn best can help you journey successfully through college and any graduate program or workforce you enter. These sites offer a short quiz then results that provide insight on your learning style and strategies to help you utilize the information moving forward.
• VARK Learning
• Learning Style Quiz
• Learning From Experience

Nursing school is academically, mentally, and emotionally demanding. Once clinicals start it can also become physically demanding, especially if you work while in the program.

Before your journey begins, I challenge you to reflect on these questions:

• How do I respond to failure/correction?
• Do I ask for help?
• How do I manage stress?
• Do I have a support system?
• Who encourages me?
• How do I respond to disappointed friends/family/missed events?

Do your best to answer correctly. I strongly encourage you to establish a concrete foundation that you know you can stand on throughout the program.

The ability to overcome the small defeats, communicate effectively, and accept constructive criticism will help you tremendously. You'll maintain focus on what matters and in turn increase your chances of success each semester. NO MATTER WHAT life throws at you!

Have a conversation with your support system and those that encourage you after accepting your seat. They will eventually be a key player along your journey. The timing for them always seems to find itself, but thank them in advance and let them know they're valued from the very beginning.

Questions to journal for before you start so you can return to them and remember your heart posture from the very beginning.

• Why nursing?
• Which specialty interests me? why?
• If i'm not hired in my desired specialty, how will I respond?
• How will I treat each patient I serve, no matter their ethnicity/culture/ socioeconomic background?
• What kind of nurse do I want patients to remember me as?
• What values will guide me when no one is watching?
• How will I respond when nursing gets hard?
• What does success mean to me beyond passing the NCLEX? career path?
• If not nursing, what?
• What hobbies do I love now and what are some I have interests in?
• How will I care for myself so I can care well for others?