One day, while at work, I took the opportunity
to interview a new nurse on our floor. I wanted to find out
about her background and any advice she could give students
at HPU. Her name is Vangie. She is an orientating nurse on
the medical-surgical floor at Straub Hospital, and she is a
spring 2002 HPU nursing graduate.
It took Vangie five years to graduate from HPU’s nursing
program, but before transferring here she spent two years at
the University of Hawai‘i. Vangie chose nursing as her
life at an early age, when she was 8 or 9 years old, but it was
in her second year of college that she decided to seriously begin
her nursing career and that’s when she transferred in to
the HPU nursing program.
Vangie said that in its entirety the nursing program at HPU
is a good program, but she added that, as in any program,
it has
good instructors that you can learn a lot from and not-so-good
instructors that you don’t learn a lot from. The main thing,
she said, is for students to adapt to the instructor’s
teaching style. If the instructor is difficult for you to learn
from, then study the text more than the notes from class. Vangie
added that she sometimes found that classmates had better ways
of explaining things than instructors, and encouraged students
to use their classmates as resources.
Vangie provided a lot of specific advice. Here are some other
things she’d would suggest to current and prospective students.
•
Study smart. Have a study group and make your study time count.
This means don’t be daydreaming or gossiping during study
time.
•
Allow yourself time to study and relax. Manage your time efficiently
and create a balance of work and play. Too much studying can
cause burnout, while too much relaxation will cause laziness
and bad grades.
•
Finally, try not to have a job while in school, but if that is
not an option, take fewer classes during the semester. Keep your
schedule manageable. |
