In my final year of high school, I was worried that I wouldn’t get into any of the nursing programs I had applied to, I thought my average was too low. After sending out my applications in January I spent the rest of my year working as hard as I possibly could to improve my average. I understood what university was going to be and I was excited. At this time although I was studying a lot I never found it overwhelming and if I did that kind of stress would only last a short period. I was so excited and a little nervous to start school. Initially, I didn’t have many challenges with my time management, then as the semester continued the workload started to pick up more and more. By midterms, I had forgotten the importance of my mental and emotional health. I was spending all of my time studying, working on assignments or thinking about said assignments. Over the break in October, I took the time to unwind and realized I had been depriving myself of that kind of relaxation, it was the first time I had truly relaxed since the semester started. After the break, I took the time to figure out new coping mechanisms because the ones I used in high school did not apply to the amount of work I had now. This experience of struggling with coping is common for first-year nursing students as there is a distinctive increase in content and requires students to spend more time studying (Gause, et al., 2024). A research study about coping strategies for first-year nursing students highlights the importance of different coping mechanisms and the value of providing support for nursing students (Gause, et al., 2024). I think Trent has given adequate support and highlights the relevance of coping as we cover these topics in class and it was this that made me recognize that I needed to value my time outside of my academics more. I started to prioritize my mental health by now giving myself a time restriction on my academics, for example doing my class work until 7 every night and any time after that is meant for doing the things that I enjoy such as drawing and reading.
When I first started at Trent this year I was living in Traill Annex which is about a 15-20 minute bus ride away from campus. I didn’t think this would be a problem but I found that it was not only inconvenient I also felt distant from the school, like an outsider. It was also difficult because my roommate at the time barely spoke to me and I often went weeks without exchanging any words with her. On top of that I had also moved away from my close group of friends that I had in my last year of high school. Of that group of friends I had moved the farthest from home and all my friends either stayed at home or went to a nearby school together. All of this combined made me feel extremely isolated and very lonely. I was finding it difficult to meet new people that shared interests with me and that I could genuinely relate to. These challenges are common among first year students as it can be difficult to find a social position in this new unknown environment (Thomas et al. 2019). It is estimated that about 41% of high school friendships will become more distant within the first semester (Thomas, et. al 2019) and I think this is true, I am only now in close contact with a few friends from high school. Not making these new relationships can negatively impact academic success and mental health (Thomas et. al 2019). Through the first half of this semester I struggled to make lasting social connections, I had a few people that I could talk to but I was still spending most of my time alone. This then started to impact my mental health which is when I reached out to counselling on campus and was able to meet with a therapist. I found this to be immensely helpful, afterwards I was still lonely but I now had the perspective that it wasn’t going to be this way forever. My isolation thankfully never impacted my academics because I usually used schoolwork as a distraction and would put all of my energy into it. Slowly I think I have gotten better, I have met more people and I learned how to cope with being alone.