Advice
If you are a nursing student, try to get a job in health care in whatever capacity you can, whether that is volunteering or working in the hospital, assisted living, doctor's office, etc . Plan ahead: most of these jobs take a lot of time to find and then set up interviews for, and you will have competition. However, the experience gives you so much more confidence going into junior year, and it helps you realize the realities of what nursing is like as a day-to-day job and not as a 4-5 hour clinical. I highly recommend PCA or CNA jobs that allow you to interact with plenty of the health care team, but also let you see the people not always addressed in class. You will have more respect and understanding about who is supporting your work as a nurse if you work a job a level lower in authority. For anyone outside nursing but interested in medicine, my advice is the same, and it can be easily applied to any other school; the more you do something, the more comfortable you become. Do your best to expose yourself to new situations, and whenever possible, take a real shift and not a shortened one. Experience is the best teacher, and the lengthy summer vacation we have is an excellent opportunity to grow and explore the field of your interest.
