There have always been challenges facing nursing students. What are the biggest ones today, and how can students deal with and overcome them? Some experts weigh in.
Frederick Richardson, a BSN student and the Breakthrough to Nursing director for the National Student Nurses’ Association, had no doubt about how much of his time would be taken up when he began attending nursing school. Yet, he says, this seems to be one of the toughest aspects of attending nursing school that students struggle with.
“One of the biggest issues that nursing students face is time—making time for everything,” explains Richardson. “Nursing school is very demanding, and when you add in the coursework, reading for homework, and the clinical work, there usually isn’t time for anything else.”
Richardson says that he was fortunate enough to learn about this before choosing to attend nursing school. His older brother had attended nursing school, and Richardson saw firsthand how often he didn’t see his brother during that time. “He would be at the library studying, at class, or at clinicals,” recalls Richardson. “When I’d see him, it would be late at night. And he would be out of the door first thing in the morning. At the time, I recognized that when I would get to nursing school, I would probably have a similar schedule, and sure enough, it’s been exactly the same way.”
To overcome this, Richardson says that students need to have perspective and be realistic regarding what they can accomplish in their lives while attending such vigorous programs. “Our schedules can get really hectic. But I think that when you get into nursing school, you have to recognize that you’re going to devote the majority of your time to your nursing program. A lot of students don’t realize that,” he says.
Students need to set their priorities straight and decide how they are going to organize their time. Richardson, for example, says that he had to learn how to plan his time, organize his life and tasks on a calendar, and then follow that calendar every single day. From his perspective, quite a lot of students expect to attend nursing school and still have an active social life and do everything they did before, like watch all their favorite television shows.
“I think that the trouble students run into is they believe they can have everything—do well in nursing school, have an active social life, et cetera. If they go in with that kind of view, I don’t think they’re going to survive nursing school,” says Richardson. “They’re going to have to sacrifice a lot of that time, but once you get into it, it gets a bit easier.”
Martha A. Dawson, DNP, MSN, FACHE, assistant professor and coordinator of Nursing and Health Systems Administration at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Nursing, as well as the current historian for the National Black Nurses Association, agrees that having enough time can be an issue for nursing students. Traditional nursing students still face challenges that relate to study time, finances, and part-time work. In addition to the challenges of traditional students, however, second degree nursing students, such as those in a BSN to MSN bridge or other accelerated degree program, may also have immediate family obligations, explains Dawson. For instance, some may be primary caregivers for older parents. “Many students in these new and emerging programs are older, and these added life demands can lead to both high stress and exhaustion,” she adds.
Money, Money, Money
Richardson and Dawson agree that financial issues can also be a big challenge for nursing students. Dawson says that with the varying nursing programs and the older student population in them, these students may have greater financial obligations besides school, like a mortgage. “The current economic climate is making it more difficult for students to gain access to scholarships, trainee grants, and other forms of funding without going further into debt,” says Dawson.
In addition to taking out loans to attend nursing school, Richardson says that there are a number of scholarships available for students. Believe it or not, though, not a lot of students are applying for them. “There are a good number of scholarships available,” says Richardson. “After speaking with some people who have scholarships or who fund scholarships for students, I’ve discovered that they’re not getting a lot of applications. One reason is because of the time. A lot of students don’t know that the scholarships exist, and a lot who know they exist feel like they don’t have the time to fill out the applications because of the high demand of nursing school.”
The reality, Richardson says, is that studying takes up so much of the students’ days that many don’t think they could take the time to do what some scholarships may require in their applications—like get a letter of recommendation, write three essays, get transcripts, and the like.
Recently, Richardson had a heart-to-heart talk with a student who was frustrated because of going to school, clinicals, and a part-time job. “I said, ‘If you took about three hours applying for a scholarship, you would get more money to help you out with your school fees,’” says Richardson. He continued to explain to the student that he was working twice as hard and putting in twice as many hours at his part-time job to make the same amount of money that he could get if he applied for a scholarship—which would ultimately free up more of his time. “It would help the student more in the long run,” says Richardson.
Family Support
Along with not getting enough financial support, some nursing students don’t have as much family support, says Rebecca Harris-Smith, EdD, MSN, BA, dean of Nursing and Allied Health at South Louisiana Community College. “Nursing classrooms across the nation are filled with an intergenerational, multicultural group of students that range from millennials to baby boomers,” explains Harris-Smith. “This nontraditional classroom of students has many that are parents who frequently do not have siblings, parents, or other relatives to assist them with child care. The expense of child care, transportation, and after-hours coverage often impacts the nursing student’s classroom, clinical, and study time.”
Richardson says that family support and encouragement is often needed, but not every student has it. “I noticed immediately that I needed a lot of support,” says Richardson.
Communication
“In my personal experience, soft skills as they relate to interpersonal people skills have become an issue for nursing students. The ability to communicate both verbally and in writing appears to be a challenge,” says Harris-Smith. She says that because Gen Xers and millennials have grown up with a lot of technology, they have spent a lot of their early years communicating that way.
“Basic socialization has changed in that the younger generations would prefer to text over having a verbal conversation. The lack of appropriate communication skills has an impact on the students’ ability to work collaboratively with physicians, fellow nurses, and other members of the health care team,” explains Harris-Smith.
“Effective communication is essential due to the intra- and interprofessional team collaboration essential in the health care arena,” Harris-Smith explains. “Additionally, nursing students must learn flexibility, professionalism, and a strong work ethic—which are essential to the development of the new nurse graduate. Being able to adapt to an ever-changing environment is important as health care facilities have staffing issues often requiring nurses to work beyond their shifts.”
Challenges for Minority Students
Although the challenges for nursing students are often the same for students of color and those who aren’t, “students from underrepresented groups in the nursing profession and in society . . . have them on a much larger scale,” says Dawson. “There are barriers and biases that these students experience such as academic skills, perceived perceptions about their abilities, lack of faculty role models, limited peer support, and major financial issues that ‘majority’ students do not have to deal with on a daily basis. Many minority students also struggle with the very basics of housing and food.”
An additional burden that minority students face, says Harris-Smith, is that of access and equity in education. “A selective admission process is used by schools of nursing across the nation, and this very process can serve as a barrier for students of color. Academic profiling of students ensures admission of the most academically prepared students that rank highest among their peers, but students from underrepresented populations are often the first-generation college students that struggle with the issues of being the first in the family to attend college. This situation places a heavy burden on the student because s/he may be dealing with the pressure of being the ‘savior’ for the family. These students are generally not savvy enough to apply for multiple college programs, have difficulty completing financial aid forms, and generally come to college with limited resources,” says Harris-Smith.
“Nursing programs tend to address diversity in their mission statements but fail to explain how this is accomplished. Merely placing the statement in the mission statement does not explain how the school of nursing addresses the issue. To ensure transparency, each school of nursing could better address this issue by providing information on the way in which this mission is accomplished,” says Harris-Smith. For example, she says, schools could use a statement that’s more explanatory: This school of nursing addresses diversity via academic profiling of students but is careful to admit a diverse student body that resembles the demographics of the community in which we live.
“There is a need for schools of nursing to restructure their admission process to address the lack of the underrepresented students in attendance at their colleges and universities,” Harris-Smith adds.
Richardson says that’s why he is a part of the Breakthrough to Nursing committee because its goal is to increase diversity in the nursing profession. Another challenge he’s seen is that some minority students don’t last in nursing school because they have different ways of learning. “Culturally, students from different backgrounds learn differently. I’m a kinesthetic learner. If you show me how to start an IV, I will know how to start an IV more efficiently than reading three chapters about how to start an IV,” Richardson explains. “A lot of nursing school is geared toward your textbook. But a lot of students are visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners.”
He says that there are also students from various cultural backgrounds who don’t know how to study. “For students who come from the other side of the world to America to learn, their views are different from yours, and when you have a different perspective, you’re able to become more aware. You’re able to see a different view. It actually makes us stronger and allows us to become smarter to look at the way that other people do things,” suggests Richardson.
“With diversity, we need to recognize and communicate to understand what the other person’s thinking is and allow them to realize that though their culture is different, it’s not a bad thing,” says Richardson. “It’s just a different view and perspective for them.”
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