First Week - Induction Week

Well it's the end of my first week at uni and time for the first proper blog. Overall it's been pretty good. The first 2 weeks are your induction period so no actual lectures or training or anything particularly course related. For me, it's been some what boring, I've done the whole uni thing before so I kind of know what to expect with all this stuff and don't really need to be told half of what they harp on about and basically know the answers to all the questions that any of my fellow freshers ask, which gets ever so slightly irritating. However there have been some interesting talks, exciting bits and nice people.

First day was a lot of sitting around and listening. It was good to be introduced to the head of year, head of school, head of god knows what else, and for the most part, the staff seem pretty friendly and certainly great representatives of the field.

The second day was our actual enrolment where we were put onto the system and MOST of us received our library cards/students ID's. Mine, of course, was one of the ones that did not get printed off for some reason and so has now been requested and should be ready for me to pick up 'some time soon'. We also had,on this day, our 'international perspectives' talk which was kind of... depressingly awesome. The programmes available to do student nursing in other countries in our second year look incredible, especially the programmes which involve travelling to the most beautiful corners of the world and actually making a difference by lending a hang in countries a lot less developed than good old England. We had to sit through this amazing talk, video and slideshow and then of course the end was the big reveal... prices start at £990 for 2 weeks. Great. I can absolutely afford that on my £450 a month NHS bursary. 

HOWEVER we also had uniform fittings in the afternoon which was so nice. It sounds really childish but getting dressed up in the uniform really made it feel real and important. Just wish we could have taken them home but they have to order them in for us, so we get them in a few weeks. Also – funny thing- The uniform fitting works as such, a woman asks you to stand in front of her, then she picks some clothes off the rail and tells you to try them on and them order your uniform. The odd thing was she must have been correct in her size assumptions for like 95% of the people in that room, including me! I felt a bit like a piece of meat, mind.

Wednesday was our trust induction in Haywards Heath (about a 30/40 minute drive from Brighton), luckily for me, at the moment, I have the luxury of a car and so it was a lot easier for me to get there than it was for some. We had talks from some of the staff working at the hospital who were all really down to earth and encouraging. We also had SURPRISE PHOTOS for our staff ID badges. Not expecting said photos, I turned up with no make-up, unbrushed hair and wearing a batman t-shirt so that's going to be a fantastic photograph. 

Thursday – Freshers Fayre. Did not go, don't group myself in with Freshers.

Friday was a fairly pointless session of showing us around 'Student Central', the universities intranet with student info on.

So that was my first week! It was quite tiring because there was a lot of trying to keep my brain on the subject when people were just talking at me for hours on end about things I sort of half know, half don't care about. I also had work on 2 of the evenings which meant uni 9am-4pm, get home, shove food in my face, leave for work 6pm-10pm, come home and go to sleep -which was quite hectic. Saying that it was perfectly do able, which is good as I will have to work as many hours as possible to fund myself through the duration of the course – as I assume, most people will.

One of my biggest fears about induction week was the meeting and greeting of all the new people. I have medically diagnosed anxiety disorder and I find meeting new people really terrifying as well as being in large groups so it was pretty nerve racking for me. I'd love to say all my fears melted away and I was put at ease by all the lovely students, but it was, just as scary, as I had thought it would be. I did speak to a few people, and to be fair they seemed lovely and I even spent my breaks with a couple of girls, my age, who I hope I bump into again.

On the whole, everything so far has had a really positive vibe. It's hard to explain but I just get a real fire in my belly when they talk about starting placements and even sitting through boring talks and waiting about, I just feel good, it all feels really right and I haven't felt like that about anything new in a really, really long time. So I can't wait to start my journey properly and eagerly await our first proper week of lectures and training!