Example Of Essay On Getting Accepted And How I Studied In A Nursing School

Getting accepted into a nursing school in America for a foreign student can seem to be a life-and-death matter before one has received an acceptance letter. I remember how the journey to my nursing school began in the Nocaj Village of Srem County, Vojvodina Province of Serbia where I was being raised in a missionary orphanage until the building went ablaze. I gave myself the task of evacuating all inhabitants including their pets and dousing the fire with the water pump that I had improvised from the orphanage’s old accordion and a bamboo-like plant. While under the Saint Nicolas Mission from Sremski Karlovci, as a young adult, I started contributing in the Mission’s magazine, billboards and brochures, which led me to be considered as the right person who could make advertisements for the Mission. In this regard, I was assigned the duty of making advertisements for recruiting nurses. In that process, I became acquainted with two nurses: one who was working in the doctor’s office and the other who said that she had studied in the USA. As time went by, we got to know each other better, and I could obtain permission from my bosses to observe what they did in wards. The two nurses started sharing with me a belief that I had a “nurse’s heart”, and therefore I should become one.
The nurse who had studied in America introduced me to Father Andric Thomas, who recommended that I apply a scholarship in International Baccalaureate, as bridge to a degree in Nursing. Having lived and worked under the Mission for about 12 years, and as one of the leaders its publications, my application became easily successful. With the passion of being a nurse still burning in me, I went through the Baccalaureate program to attain a general point average of 2.9. Before I began the two-year Baccalaureate program, I had already attended a one-year English language college and passed my TOEFL and GMAT examinations. Since Father Andric Thomas had known me very well, he chose me to be the leader of the volunteer team of his missionary work back in the village of Nocaj to help villagers during the outbreak of Q fever for eight months. This task involved educating people on the sources of infection, vaccination and other ways of preventing the disease from spreading. At this point in my life, the passion of becoming a nurse was eminent in my heart; as I worked with the team of volunteer doctors and nurses, I felt that it was difficult to unlearn being like them.
When I came back for the second time to the USA, I made a quick decision of gathering recommendations early from the Father and previous workmates that had included doctors and nurses in the Serbian missionary trip. I applied to more than 24 schools, I got ten interviews, and I was accepted in five schools. It is important to note that before the interviews, I had consulted widely with high profile people in this profession and educators and administrators of various nursing schools who had, in fact, told me what I should expect to be asked about by interviewing panels. I answered the interview items naturally well; apart from the qualifications on transcript and diploma certificates, scores of TOEFL and GMAT, financial evidences from sponsors and valid visa documents, they were generally inquiring one about his volunteerism, leadership and altruism. Therefore, according to the interview report that led to my acceptance to the school, I had shown the right aptitude to take the major and social consciousness, ability to communicate and interact, maturity, tolerance, personal integrity, motivation for the career and service to others, which are crucial traits for one to be a successful registered nurse.
When I joined the nursing school, I wondered how I was going to study the major so that I can pass my exams and become a successful registered nurse. Everybody, including my parents, kept telling me that each person has his/her own style of studying. However, studying at the next level was much needed regardless of one’s style; as a student, I needed to go extra mile rather than just remembering, understanding and applying what I had learnt. It was important that I included analyzing, evaluating and creating in all that I studied in class. Although most of my classmates have been taking extended periods to study, I have been opting for average bursts, in which I do not take a lot of time or little time to study, most likely six hours a day. However, so long as there are in-between class breaks, I would not miss to use the forty minutes to study. On my desk, one could find class notes, lap tops and a lot of practice questions. A part from studying and answering the practice questions in prose, my study style has also included visual and flow charts. Although I had never been employing them in my lower college, they have been much helpful. When the test came around, it was easy for me to redraw them from my head. Testing myself and finding answers from lecture notes and supplementary materials like textbooks have been a routine to me. I knew that apart from realizing how much I understood concepts, it was equally important to learn from my mistakes. Apart from studying alone, I have been revising, taking quizzes and challenges together with friends, to understand why the professor marked a certain question right or wrong. Learning with friends is quite interesting, as it makes everybody in the group to think more critically than he would have done it alone. When I have been alone, I have been writing tests for myself to review later, and they have been useful in forcing me to understand concepts well enough.
Although I am a sportsperson, I have been aware that no amount of any extracurricular activities will contribute to one’s GPA. Right from the beginning, I have been restraining myself from participating in some co-curricular activities, because I have never wanted to take more activities than I can handle. Likewise, prioritizing one’s education should begin from the start of the course, and no one should have a mentality that he will improve his GPA later. These tips have made me to balance successfully activities at the nursing school, amid other responsibilities, and I am waiting to graduate with a GPA of 4.0. With the current shortage of nursing staffs in the US, one can be attempted to be employed here. However, it will be more honorable and just if I honor the promise I made to the organization that sponsored me to work in my home country upon my graduation.