Why I Chose Nursing

Note: Before I begin, for anyone not familiar with the education system in Canada, specifically Quebec, we have 5 years of high school, followed by CEGEP (2 years for a pre-university program or 3 years for a career program), and then university.

Why did I choose Nursing. It's a question at least one teacher a semester asks us to share with the class to get to know us. It's a question friends, family and acquaintances ask me all the time. It's a question I ask myself when I'm up at 4am studying or dealing with a particularly difficult clinical assignment. The past year and a half has been a total whirlwind of confusion, leading to choosing this career path, leading to the intense studying that comes with it. So why did I choose Nursing?

Like the majority of people my age, I was totally lost. Growing up, I was always that kid who would "probably end up in medical school". I wasn't even sure myself but figured I'd end up doing something in the sciences. Until my final year of high school where I took chemistry and physics and was completely miserable. Usually excelling in Biology and general Science classes, it was completely discouraging to go through (AKA struggle through) these classes and I started to question my post secondary education path. I most definitely did not want to subject myself to another 2 years of this torture in CEGEP, so a Science program was completely out of the question. So now what?

Lost and confused as I was, I chose to go into Social Sciences, where at least I'd be able to take a variety of courses ranging from Psychology to Business to History, and hopefully be able to figure out what I really liked. And in a way, I did. Out of all the courses I ended up taking in that two year period, my Psychology classes were my absolute favourites and while I wasn't 100% certain, I finally felt like I "sort of" had an idea of where I was going in the future.

As university application deadlines drew near though, I started to get nervous. As nice as studying Psychology sounded, I still needed to be realistic. Psychology is a hugely popular program here and there are TONS of students currently pursuing it. However I was still not crystal clear on some things; would there be a job for me when I graduated? How long would I have to study before I got a job? Would I be able to use my degree in the meantime while I worked towards a higher one? And once again, while I was not as lost as I was before, I was still confused.

Around the same time this existential crisis was going, I was speaking to a new friend of mine (my now boyfriend) about our CEGEP programs and found out that he was going into Nursing, which sort of gave me that kind of "oh shit" kind of moment where I realized, "hey, that sounds kind of interesting, why did I never think about that?". So in my further confusion, I looked at course calendars for Nursing (loving what I saw of course, no physics or math, but lots of biology!!) while also debating on university Psychology courses, with the deadline drawing nearer and nearer.

Finally, completely confused and bordering on total meltdown, I visited a career counsellor at my college to see if I could figure things out. To make a long story short, I found out that to do what I would want to do in Psychology, it would require a minimum of 8 years of study and no guaranteed job, and no job in my field within those 8 years besides maybe a research assistant position. Completely discouraged, I brought up the idea of taking Nursing, and I liked what I learned. Not only did all the courses sound like ones I would completely love taking, but there were also so many fields in which I could incorporate Psychology as a Nurse. I was sold. I made the switch.

Fast forward 2 semesters and here I am. While some days its a struggle, and the workload is intense, and while I often get frustrated, discouraged and exhausted, I am completely happy and satisfied with my decision to go down this career path. I can honestly say I show up to class excited for what I'm going to learn that day, and I constantly feel challenged in the very best way. And while I still have a long way to go, I'm no longer confused, discouraged or lost. I know where I'm going, and I'm so excited to get there.