Date Published: July 14th, 2020
Becoming a great nurse starts out with being a great nursing student. Fortunately, a lot of the qualities that will help you in school will also help you later on in your nursing career! As you get started in your education, these are the qualities that will really help you succeed.
1) Organized: Being a nursing student means juggling coursework, clinicals, everything else you have going on in your life and of course, lots and lots of studying. Being organized will help you stay on top of your classes and other responsibilities.
2) Goal-Oriented: There are a lot of steps to becoming a nurse, from initial entry exams through coursework and finally conquering the NCLEX. Setting small goals and touchpoints throughout can help you keep up that feeling of accomplishment as you’re going. Keeping your ultimate goal in mind while you handle each of these hurdles will help you stay motivated over the long haul. You can also make things more fun by rewarding yourself when you reach each milestone!
3) Resilient: With so many concepts and procedures to learn, you’re likely to have a grade or two that you’re less than thrilled with, or a skill that you don’t master right away. And that’s okay! It happens to everyone. Being able to take a deep breath, pick yourself up, and try again is a habit that will keep you moving in the right direction.
4) Focused: Get in the habit of eliminating distractions. When it’s time to study, turn off the television and the phone (or at least put it somewhere else), get rid of notifications on social media, and do whatever else you need to do to be able to focus on your work.
Want more study tips? Check out 8 Characteristics of a Successful Online Student
5) Good communicator: Developing good habits for listening carefully and asking for help or more information when you need it from your instructors will help you get through your coursework whether your classes are in-person or online. Those same habits will also help you out when you’re working with patients, making you more able to ask good questions about how they’re feeling and more careful about listening to their answers.
6) Critical Thinker: Being able to take in a lot of information and then make careful, rational conclusions based on what you’ve learned is a major part of nursing. Keeping your critical thinking skills sharp will help you in everything from choosing the right answer on a test to deciding the best course of action to help a patient with chest pain.
7) Willingness to learn: New medical research and information comes out frequently – our ever-evolving understanding of COVID-19 is a dramatic illustration of that fact. The curiosity that gets you through learning new concepts in nursing school is the same curiosity that will serve you well throughout your career whenever new information or procedures are introduced.
Focus on your goals, enjoy learning new things, and pick yourself up when you need to. Keep working hard and you’ll be a practicing nurse before you know it!
Looking for more articles, resources, and tips for nursing students? Follow ATI Nursing on Facebook.
