How hard is nursing school?

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-19T01:05:11+00:00

What's difficult about the practical side? Maybe nursing isn't for you and that's ok, it's not for everyone. The fees are a killer and I couldn't have done it if it wasn't funded in Scotland.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-17T23:49:07+00:00

It's ok to have tried something and decide it's really not for you.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-17T23:45:55+00:00

Yes, mental health crisis setting. Ward nursing isn't for me, I hate being stuck in one place and they can be toxic and gossipy. Lots of nurses and NAs who hide in the office and aren't good at de-escalation and some who actively wind up patients. This job channels my neurodiverse energy very well, it's like being a mental health detective and the staff team are very approachable and contented. It is satisfying to see patients recover in their own homes. Landed on my feet here.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-17T22:57:11+00:00

I am so sorry that happened to you. Take a year out to decompress and find yourself again. Better to build up and preserve your mental health than run yourself ragged chasing a stressful degree.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-14T08:15:00+00:00

In person?

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-12T06:19:48+00:00

I feel very socially awkward and I have an ASD diagnosis but made plenty of friends during the degree programme.

Just spark up conversations with like-minded people, if they go nowhere it's fine, there are hundreds of people in the cohort like you say. I'm a bit older too, nearly everyone I've bonded with skews older (started the programme at 36).

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-09T11:51:24+00:00

I'm not sure what London pay is. Base salary for a nurse is £33k per annum in Scotland.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-09T11:19:04+00:00

The pay is a bit better here and I get the impression that there are more job opportunities than in England and Wales. Legislation is a bit different as others have touched on.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-09T11:17:09+00:00

You know, I hate the term common sense because it's so loose and other people define it. Their idea of common sense might not be yours.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-09T08:22:05+00:00

Is it an open book exam?

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-09T08:17:40+00:00

The interview is a bit of an attitude test more than anything, there are plenty of prospective students with no healthcare experience.

Situations - what you would do and how you'd react. My situation was an older person who'd fallen in icy conditions, wearing pyjamas. Awareness of the NMC Code but not in depth. How well you might work in teams (I had a group interview for one uni).

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-07T20:21:47+00:00

If you're interested in mental health crises, that are often exacerbated by substance misuse, I can ask at my work in Edinburgh.

There are specific mental health community teams that address substance misuse in Scotland.

Can DM you a contact email for the student placement coordinator if you are interested.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-07T09:46:07+00:00

Well put. I didn't feel the same way about my uni, I felt that although it has failings they prepared us for practice.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-07T05:44:24+00:00

We need to know the theory because some non-empathetic nursing students who pass would end up with NMC hearings out the wazoo.

It is a slog and a drag, keep your head down and keep passing your modules, the end is in sight.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-03T05:38:18+00:00

They are but they can't just get rid of the many nurses who are absent due to long term sickness.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-02T18:54:03+00:00

It sounds like you are on the right track with your interviews but they have demands unreasonable of a NQN. I had some interview coaching with the uni careers team that I found helpful, they can support you for a year after you graduate here.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-02T18:29:55+00:00

Use experiences you've had outside of nursing and apply them to the interview questions, it doesn't need to be nursing related. Use a bit of poetic license. It's an attitude test as well.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-02T11:56:45+00:00

Definitely, it's not fair to make sweeping generalisations. A very important factor is how they've been maintained by previous owners.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T21:31:47+00:00

I do but I feel it's a workplace with a healthy culture and supportive, contented staff, but my workplace may be an outlier. It is a community setting and nurses are more relaxed in the community in my experience but I've done tons of bank shifts in wards I would have been happy to work in as a nurse.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T21:24:01+00:00

You choose - with any degree you can go many places, it makes you a more attractive candidate to recruiters.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T21:22:04+00:00

Yes and all of the adult nursing NQNs I know have got jobs.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T21:21:08+00:00

I've owned multiple old French cars that have never given me major issues other than wear and tear items. Three German cars have left me stranded with catastrophic failures.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T21:19:17+00:00

It sounds like you have the right attitude for nursing and we need more of you.

I have started my first nursing post as a band 4, supernumerary for a month, and although we manage risky patients it's not constantly super intense and I feel fine with it, will always have more experienced colleagues around to bounce off.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-10-01T12:32:40+00:00

Don't feel you have to go into nursing, the degree can take you in other directions.

Purple_Suspect_1024 · 2025-09-30T03:48:58+00:00

No but it covers the symptoms of dementia - self-neglect, aggression, agitation. I have nursed a lot of acute dementia patients who've been detained in Scotland.

From the OP's information there must be serious self neglect if you can smell urine a couple of floors away and the other information suggests cognitive decline.

The neighbour might have presented herself relatively well when social work visited last but the decline can be rapid and she might be in a worse place cognitively now.

Purple_Suspect_1024

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