Starting school as an 18-year-old is a terrifying experience. I had been looking forward to leaving the small town that I grew up in and leaving the turmoil of my childhood home. I quite literally spoke about my dreams to go to college for years. The earliest memory I have of this dream was when I was in middle school and was talking to my guidance counselor during one of the many sessions I had. I must have been 11 or 12 years old at the time. I grew up in a not so safe home environment and being the oldest child, I ended up feeling responsible for my siblings most of the time. I felt that if I wasn’t there, no one would be there to protect them. It was something that ate at me up until my younger sister left the home and my younger brother was able to take care of himself. By then, things at home had settled down significantly and the need for me to worry so much had diminished.
When I decided I wanted to go to school for nursing, I became completely absorbed in my options. I applied to multiple schools and got accepted to five different colleges throughout Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. I was extremely excited but then a little bit of the adult world sunk in, and I learned how much these schools would actually cost. I went on a tour to a school closer to home and fell in love. This school was Vermont Technical College (or at least that was what it was called then). This also was the best financial option. My mom co-signed on my student loans but ultimately it was my responsibility to pay for any other costs like food, gas, books, etc. I would also need to start paying for my loan once school ended and it was made extremely clear that my parents would not be able to help me with these payments. So, I worked nearly all of that summer before school to save up money and I made sure I had a part time job set up in the town that I would be going to school.
Randolph, Vermont is an extremely small town almost two hours away from my hometown and family. If anyone is familiar with the geography of Vermont, there are nearly no direct routes. The two interstates running through the state only go north and south. After that, it’s all windy roads, potholes, and a mix of black top and dirt. Randolph didn’t have much going on besides the college, several farms, a few small towns and restaurants, and a weird man that my friends and I dubbed “Pirate Pete”. This town was about the same size as the one I grew up in so it wasn’t a huge shock. The biggest shock was moving into the dorms. I was extremely shy and nervous to move somewhere that far away and having to share a living space with someone I had never met before. Luckily, the school had connected myself and my roommate together before the start of school, so we had started to talk through Facebook.
The move-in experience was nerve wracking as I cared entirely too much about what everyone else must have been thinking about me. I also was so nervous that I wasn’t the nicest person that day. My mom got the brunt of that anxiety as she was trying to help me unpack. I should have been a lot nicer that day. My roommate was also in the nursing program in the same grade as me. Surprisingly, we had familiar connections which made getting to know each other a lot easier! One of her high school best friends was my boyfriends’ sister. Did I mention that Vermont is small? Anyway, we hit it off and she was really the only person that I hung out with that entire year while on campus.
I had no previous experience in healthcare prior to this year and had no clue what to expect. I had thought about the LNA program in high school but by the time I made my decision to go into nursing, it was my Senior year, and it was too late to sign up. I was extremely nervous, feeling like I was walking in blind. The first month or so, the clinical experience only consisted of the classroom and some creepy dummies. I was grateful for the experience though because it taught me the fundamentals. Who knew you were supposed to hold a washcloth a certain way? Or better yet, who knew you weren’t supposed to shake your hands after washing them before you grab the paper towel?
It was a huge learning curve, and everyone had to keep up! Since I was coming straight out of high school with only 2 college classes under my belt from being in advanced levels in high school, I had a full class schedule. The program I was in was for a Licensed Practical Nurse certificate. This program was built as an accelerated program and consisted of trimesters. Everything was extremely fast paced! My first trimester had five classes (19 credits), my second trimester had 4 classes (16 credits), and my third trimester had 2 classes (9 credits). It was intense to learn how to navigate college and also how to stay afloat while taking that many classes. Luckily, we had absolutely amazing instructors that year, Amanda & Debbie, who helped us through the entire program and made sure we all succeeded. There was not a lot of down time. My roommate and I even started taking naps after our 10-hour day classes and clinicals. We would set a timer for 20 minutes and were so exhausted that we fell asleep quickly, and while we didn’t wake up refreshed most of the time, we got up to do our hours worth of homework.
It was a little scary being in college and having to do all these adult things. Even though I had been taking care of myself for so long and having to be an “adult”, it was terrifying having to do it in such a new location. I had to balance sleep, school, general hygiene needs, food, and work all in one day. It was nearly impossible. Usually at least one of these was lacking at any given time. I even developed a stress ulcer (ask my roommate! I thought I was just hungry all the time but apparently that gnawing feeling was my stomach eating itself!). Sharing two showers and three toilets with 14 other women was hard and so was finding time to do laundry when there were only 2 laundry rooms for the entire building (and they weren’t very clean!). The scariest part for me was having to walk from my dorm all the way across campus to the computer lab in the middle of the night by myself. Now I am already scared of the dark (having grown up in the middle of the woods I was constantly afraid a wild animal would come out and kill me). What was even scarier than the dark though was the fact that this college was made up predominantly of men. As it was a technical college, many people came to attend programs like automotive technology; civil, computer, and electrical engineering; diesel technology; forestry; landscaping; and agriculture. A majority of those obtaining these majors are men. Being a young woman, I was always worried about walking in the dark by myself. Usually, I would call a family member or friend while I was walking so, I didn’t feel so alone.
Either way, I made it through this extremely stressful year and was able to graduate with a certificate of practical nursing. It was one of the best days of my life to have my first pinning ceremony and graduate, with the rest of my amazing class that will always have a place in my heart, in 2016.
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