So far, nursing school is way more intense than my years in police or design studies. Part of that is because I'm actively trying to learn the material instead of spacing out during class and then cramming later. But honestly, the only class I can compare the pace of A&P to is a design history course I took, which, at least, was spread out over 2 semesters. A&P is 6 hours a week, crammed in to one semester. I really wonder why that is, given that I will be in school for another 4 years...? The pace is so fast that the profs aren't teaching the material, so much as they are just reading it out loud off of the projector slides.

I think the competitiveness of nursing school is directly related to the course difficulty. A minimum high school average of 80% (letter grade B/3.0 GPA) was required for entry this year. 1275 students applied, and 186 were accepted into the program.

Compare this to my last two programs, where the minimum average was essentially a high school diploma or GED. The profs did not take for granted that we understood anything, really, so they went through and explained everything the way you might remember in high school.

However, I think that since you have to have good study habits and have cognitive abilities in order to be accepted into nursing, the profs take advantage of this and hit the ground running with course material and pacing.

Now, I'm not complaining. If given a choice, I'd rather be in a class too fast for me instead of a class too slow. It keeps me engaged and an active participant, and keeps me motivated to keep up.

It's definitely different than I'm used to... I'm just sayin'. :)

One last thing to note: I've read a lot of student nurse blogs over the past year, some from start to finish (they are now nurses). One thing that jumps out at me is the content starts out strong and frequent at the start of their blogging but tapers off to maybe once or twice a month (or less) later on. I know from having kept journals before, it can be hard to find the energy to write something, anything, but before you know it the chance to write at all is gone, and you're left at the end of some big event without much to show for it. I don't want that to happen to my blog.

Therefore, I am committing that even when the week has been crazy, crazy, busy and all I want to do is hide somewhere, I will blog at least once a week.

There. I said it. Now you can hold me to it.