How to Thrive as a Mature Student Nurse

By Lenka Huntley

Starting a nursing course as a mature student can be a daunting prospect. How to Thrive as a Mature Student Nurse will you help you to deal with the challenges you may face during your course.
Packed full of advice, the book will guide you through your student nurse journey from the very first week all the way to your celebration when you become a registered nurse.

• Personal accounts show how the author coped with challenges herself.
• ‘Dos and Don’ts’ will help you to balance competing demands on your time.
• ‘Top tips’ summarise the advice given in each chapter, including tips for students who have children.
• Each chapter ends with a set of ‘Common worries answered’ that focus on worries and doubts that mature students often experience.

This book will prepare you for life as a mature student nurse and support you all the way through to graduation.

Lenka Huntley was a frequent contributor to Nursing Standard Student during her course, and this book is the book she wished she had had to help cope with the challenges and thrive as a mature student nurse. She qualified as a registered nurse in 2022.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lantern Publishing
• Release date: Jun 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781914962097

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

FIRST WEEK NERVES

You have been accepted to your university of choice, you accepted your offer, and you are ready and raring to start. You are officially a student nurse. You look forward to new adventures, new learning and making new friends. You are excited to be on the course and you must be so proud of yourself for getting a place because competition has been tough. But you are also terrified of starting a course which is not like any other courses, and you are not sure what to expect. Everybody told you that this course can be tough, and this is certainly true, but with the right support and guidance you can make an absolute success of it and thrive. It might also be daunting to become a student again when you have left school a long time ago. But if you remain positive and open to the new experience of being a mature student, you will succeed and you will also enjoy it.

This chapter will explore how to cope in the first few weeks when you are new to the course, and you are a mature student. We will look at how to overcome the first week nerves and become confident and ready to learn, how to access support, meet others and become the student nurse you want to be. The important thing is to remember that you will not be on your own. There will be many others like you, who have not been studying for a while. But it will not prevent you from being brilliant and having the best experience. You have now entered a wonderful world of nursing which has so many options and avenues. But now you are at the beginning of that journey which can be as exciting and thrilling as it could be if you let go of your fears and insecurities and flourish into a confident student nurse from day one.

Your first week

When I started my nursing degree, I was 46. Although I had a previous degree and some other studies, I had been out of school for a while, and I was quite apprehensive about being a student again. On one hand, I was excited because this course was something I really wanted to do and I managed to secure a place on a course which was high in demand; however, I was also scared of not being able to keep up with my younger colleagues, especially those who had just finished their A-levels and whose study skills were more up to date. On my first day I felt so overwhelmed that I wanted to run away and hide. By the end of the first week, I was wondering whether it was too late to change my mind. I felt alone and out of place and old enough to be everybody’s mother. But I soon got to know my colleagues and found that we were all in the same boat, whether we were mature students or fresh from A-levels. We all had our struggles, but we all came out at the other end, stronger and more confident than ever before.

When you enter the big lecture hall for the first time, surrounded by hundreds of other students, you might feel completely lost. You might also think that everybody else looks more confident than you. But this is not true. They all feel the same way, and some can hide it better than others. Find your inner confidence and project it out. You will see that you will not feel out of place any more. Be proud of yourself! You made it to this lecture theatre because you are good enough to be here and good enough to become a nurse. Believe in yourself from day one and you will go far.

Here are some tips for your first day:

Arrive early – you don’t want to miss out on anything important so be there from the start.

Be proactive and open-minded – if you are interested in everything, you will get the most out of your degree. As a mature student, you will instinctively know what is important as you have the lived experience and wisdom.

Stay positive – a positive attitude will get you much further than being too critical and it will make others want to approach you and talk to you.

Smile and remain friendly – get to know everyone around you. Don’t be judgemental, initiate conversations. A friendly smile will break the ice and open new friendships.

Take notes – you will be so overwhelmed with new information that it will be handy to look back at your notes.

Start networking and making new friends – nursing is about teamwork and helping each other and you can start from the very first day.

You might be fresh from an access course or you might not have been in a classroom for a few years, but all this is suddenly new and scary and the step you are taking into the unknown is huge and very significant. You might feel the pressure of what lies ahead of you but one important thing to bear in mind is that there is so much support out there, you just have to reach out. Your study skills might be a bit rusty and you don’t know how to write an essay, but do not worry! You will be helped all the way through, no matter what abilities or disabilities you may have. The only thing you have to do at the start is settle in and relax. Your university will ensure that you get whatever help you need.

Get social

In my first week we had a few presentations from the Nursing Society which was very active in our university. They talked about what it is like being a student nurse and about all the activities they organised. Being a member meant not only access to interesting talks and seminars related to nursing but was also a good way of meeting new people, as they organised quizzes and pizza nights.

Every university has numerous societies that you can join and extra-curricular events you can participate in. Although you might feel that as a mature student this is not for you, you should give it a go. Visit the Freshers’ fair where you can get acquainted with all the societies your university offers and choose something that sparks your interest. You will get to know people and do something fun as well. You can also investigate extra-curricular activities, especially those related to nursing. Not only will you learn new skills and enhance your CV, but you will also meet other students, and this will make you feel like you belong.

Depending on your course size, you might be able to get to know everybody quite easily within the first week; but if your cohort is large, this might not be possible. However, joining a WhatsApp group that will inevitably be created is the best way of keeping up to date with what is going on, not only academically. It’s also a great way of planning social events.

I have never been a big fan of social media and I did not really use WhatsApp, but I found that by not being part of my cohort’s chat, I was missing out on important information and the cohort’s spirit that was reflected in that chat. Although I was reluctant to join in at first, in the end I became part of our chat group, and it helped me not to feel alone. It was good to know that I was not the only one struggling with an assignment topic or exam revision and when I had a problem or a question, someone would always come up with a solution or at least a virtual hug.

Another way of getting to know your colleagues is coming to your tutor group. Find out from the first day who your personal tutor is and introduce yourself. If you cannot do it in person, send them a friendly email and ask them to arrange a meeting. Find out who else is in your tutor group and arrange a tutor group meeting. Although you might feel like meeting with your tutor individually might be more beneficial to you because other people in your group are all eighteen, you should also participate in tutor group meetings because you will always have things to share and insights to gain.

I was the only mature student in my tutor group as the rest of the girls were all eighteen and they knew each other from college. Initially I was reluctant to be part of that group because I thought that given the huge age difference and life circumstances, I would have nothing in common with them. However, I was wrong because we were all in the same boat and it helped me to know that although my struggles were different, everybody had their own challenges. It gave me another perspective and taught me a lot about togetherness and acceptance.

If you are a mature student with life experience, you might also consider becoming a course rep. This is an excellent way of enhancing your skills and you will get to know other students and lecturers. It will give you confidence to speak in public and address a larger group, and you might have a chance to sit in on meetings with the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), the regulatory body for the nursing and midwifery profession in the UK. Do not worry if you think you are not confident enough to take this role on. If you are willing to do it, you will be supported in building up your confidence and becoming a leader. Leadership is one of the most valued qualities in nursing and your leadership skills could be honed before you even become a registered nurse.

Know your way around

If you are completely new to your university, you might find it difficult to know where everything is. You will probably have a tour of the campus in the first few days but if your campus is big, you might find it helpful to download a campus map from your university website or draw a map of the most important things you will need and the buildings where you are most likely to have lectures. It is very stressful to run around the campus, trying to find your lecture theatre or a teaching room while the lecture has already started, and you don’t want to be late. Knowing where the key facilities such as library, IT rooms, student support services, skills labs and your school reception are, is also important. Last but not least, you should know where the cafeteria and the coffee shops are located as these will be the places where everybody will gather at break times.

I am not good at directions, and I can get lost in new environments. So I went to Student Services and asked for a map. I went around the campus and marked on the map everything I needed, including the rooms where most nursing lectures took place. I made sure I knew where the skills labs were, as these are a big part of any nursing course. I also made sure I knew where all the coffee shops were because you need a place to recharge after a heavy lecture.

Buddy support network

One of the talks in the first week of the course was about Peer Assisted Study Support – PASS. A few PASS leaders came to talk to us to reach out and to invite us to their first session aimed at helping us to direct our first steps as student nurses. All their sessions were very popular as we found that being given advice by someone who was in our shoes just a year ago was very helpful and reassuring. Each week we had a PASS session on a different topic and the leaders always ensured that everybody was equally engaged and included, even those shy ones like me. All our PASS leaders were also mature students, so they gave us some very useful tips on how to combine studies with other life commitments.

Peer Assisted Study or Peer Assisted Learning are schemes that provide students with the opportunity to learn from each other, ask questions and get feedback from those who have recently completed the same studies. By attending, you can learn how best to tackle assignments and placements, how to juggle studies with your other commitments or how to look after yourself to achieve a work–life balance. There are also various buddy or mentoring schemes which are worth looking into as you start. Sometimes all you need is to be told that you can do it by someone who has been where you are very recently. A friendly chat and a thumbs up might be all you need to overcome those first few weeks’ nerves and worries of not being good enough.

Timetables and course planners

Your timetable should be available to you before you start so that you can already make plans. Most universities have an online platform where you can view information related to your course once you enrol. You can check which days your lectures are on for at least a semester, and it will also tell you when you are due placements. You can also find out when you have study days or weeks and assessments.

Another useful thing to check out is the course planner which will tell you exactly what you will be doing in the next three years. It will indicate lecture blocks, placements, assessments and holidays. These days tend to be fixed in advance (unless something unprecedented like a pandemic happens), which means that you can plan your next three years with confidence. It is handy especially if you have big family events coming up to see when best to fit them in or if you will need to schedule something important. It will also give you an idea about when you can fit some work in, how to plan childcare and how to fit your family routine in.

One of the first things I looked at when I started was my course planner so that I could see what was ahead of me. On one side, it might be daunting when you are at the beginning of it all, but seeing for example that I would have the whole Christmas off helped me to set myself a goal. It also allowed me to plan my study time, childcare and coordinate my diary with my husband’s so that we could work out between us the tricky periods when we were both super busy well in advance.

Support

Getting the right support from day one and as you go along is vital for surviving and thriving on this course. Even if you think you will be fine, you never know what challenges you might encounter along the way. You can reach out any time you need, and university will do whatever they can to help you. But you should never struggle in silence. That will only make things worse. In your first week you will be