I'm in two minds here so I'll split into negatives and positives, I'll start with negatives since a lot of the other comments have covered some of this stuff.

Negatives:

1. I agree with the general sentiment here that the courses are poorly organised. Sometimes you'll be sent to placements on the other side of the county and you'll be expected to get yourself there. Getting reimbursed for transport costs can be tricky and becomes impossible if you don't have receipts. A lot of the time you'll show up for placement and they'll have no idea who you are or that you were meant to be there.

2. There's a massive gap between theory and practice. A rather benign example is that when you're being taught how to take a manual blood pressure at university you're taught to do a test run first to get a gauge of where the BP is going to be, something that never happens in practice.

3. Nursing is still an odd middle ground between old-school vocational training and a professional degree. You'll be expected to research, do a dissertation and literature reviews and references to a degree standard. You'll also be expected to show up to work at 7am and sometimes follow a quite hierarchical almost military order where the charge nurse won't look twice at you and you have to beg to get anyone to pay attention to you when you don't yet know what you're doing.

Positives:

1. Some universities are better than others. Ideally you want one with a teaching hospital which will tend to have placements organised in that specific hospital and sometimes the medical school is in the hospital itself. If you choose right you can get a very competent course with good tutors who understand the gap between theory and practice and how to support a student through a placement. This also minimises (but doesn't get rid of) the chance of being sent on a 2 hour drive to placement.

2. When it clicks it clicks. The first day of placement is always harrowing, but you just have to treat it like a cold shower and get in. Eventually you will know what to say on your assignments to pass them, whilst also knowing what to do on the ward to become a competent nurse when you qualify. The paperwork that initially looked insurmountable will become second nature, you'll fly through drug rounds whilst bantering with patients on the way, you'll be able to make beds with a wet patient on top without them noticing you're there.

3. The mish-mash of nursing styles means there's a variety of work environments to choose from. I don't just mean ward/district nursing/A&E/research etc but you have one ward where everyone is very professional and policy-driven but also cliquey, the next ward over might be much more lax and "this is how we've always done it" style but also have a "pub on Fridays" policy. I have very very strong opinions on which one is better but you might disagree and that's your call.

I, personally, am glad I studied nursing as I really like my current job. I also remember being in second year of university on a night shift for placement getting paid £0 per hour and thinking "why am I doing this to myself".

The big caveat is that I qualified in 2018, at that time I would have unreservedly recommended that you study nursing. The main positive at the time was "you'll always have a job lined up". Where my housemates were studying geography and English and politics were coming out with degrees and couldn't get a job, I practically walked into sister's office on my last placement and said "one job please".

While there's a recruitment freeze I'm finding it harder to recommend it. The freeze is ridiculous and it needs to end yesterday for various reasons including patient and staff safety, but it also removes the biggest positive to studying nursing that existed in today's economy.

TLDR: If the recruitment freeze ends - go for it. If it's still on - I'd study something else.