I've finished the first week of classes and so far, it's close to expectations. I can see that I'm going to get to know this corner of the UT campus very, very well. And it is a corner (southeast) - the nursing building is pretty new, right across from the Erwin Center (pic below). There's a nice parking garage behind it, convenient but pricey. So different from when I was a student. UT seems to have invested quite a bit in parking garages in the intervening 30 years -- well, just in buildings, period. I haven't been to palatial Gregory Gym yet, but I hear it's better than Lake Austin Spa.
I actually spent a lot of time in the basement of Gregory back in the 1980's. I was just learning how to lift weights and they had a decent weight room and a pool. But I'd never call it palatial - I think some of us called it dirty. It was. The summer that Shawna came to Austin & we lived together (1983), we would routinely walk from our little west campus apartment over to Gregory, lift weights together then hit the pool. I can remember vividly that we were singing together some of the songs off The Police's Synchronicity album as we walked some days. When I went to get my official UT ID card, I actually parked on the spot where our apartment used to be (yep, it's a parking garage now), walked along the drag, then crossed over to the Academic Center and stood in line with 18 year olds to get my card. And the ID looks awful (but my school of nursing ID looks great - and that's one I'll wear every day in clinicals). It was an intense deja vu experience - I had not repeated that walk, one I did countless times, since 1984 when I first graduated. I expect to feel that way again.
My Advanced Pathophysiology class is the hard one. Some say it's the very hardest class of the entire 2 years. I am taking it pass/fail, but it's still going to require lots of study. I feel a bit disadvantaged in that I've only been a nurse for 4 years, and then pretty much out of the med/surg milieu for over a year, but wah, wah! -- some people haven't been in school in decades and some folks (the "Alternate Entry" students, accelerated second-degree) haven't even practiced as nurses yet. So I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I liked the professor, she displayed a little humor and personality and seems to be smart. I just hope her test questions are fair. Yes, I know that's an entirely subjective evaluation, but I found in the first go-round of nursing school that was a critical item. Is your purpose to see if we can apply knowledge or just to show how tricky and clever you think you are? Anyway, I'll find out in a couple of weeks. And typical of a nursing class, the assigned readings for the first day included 5 chapters and some extra pages beyond that, too. And there were 5 powerpoints to go with them, but she only covered two of them. We just have to know the other three. Good thing I like to read. And yes, about diseases, especially gross ones. You should see some of the pictures in this book.
The other two classes feel more do-able. One class is really a two-fer, it's Advanced Health Assessment with a large clinical component. I'll be doing 4 hours of lab and 4 hours of clinical per week for that class, and have separate written work for the labs. But this is so cool - I got my 3/4 length white lab coat. I feel soooo much like an APN now (Advanced Practice Nurse). In healthcare, only docs and APN's wear this distinguished looking lab coat. I was fearing they would expect us to wear scrubs to clinical - something I really don't like - but no, we get to wear the lab coat over "professional dress". This will be a time-consuming, important class that basically teaches us to take in a patient off the street, perform a thorough history and exam and then do a differential diagnosis. Now think about that. People come in with a wide mix of issues - and even though I'll be a psych nurse, they will present with medical as well as psych problems. I have to parse those out and refer them to another provider when it's necessary. And it's my decision about whether it's necessary (& I can hear the other nurses chime in....."and it's your license on the line").
The last class is Intro Psychosocial Nursing, focusing on cultural diversity. It will be interesting, certainly a topic I've been exposed to before, and I don't expect this class to kill me. A gift from the professor - we don't have a textbook. She posts PDF's of articles for us to read for each week. Also, she's a New Yorker. I could listen to her all day, just reminds me fondly of Jersey.
Something cool that coincided with the first week of class was Austin Fashion Week. Dani and I were invited to a show at Anthropologie and it was really pretty neat. We saw about 20 new outfits on the models and then we were let loose to shop. I liked that they used "real" models -- many of them were saleswomen from the store. It's easier to judge how something will really look when a woman is not a size 00. Dani bought some J Brand jeans that she has decided she is in love with. They served cookies and champagne. And yes, we're decked out head to toe in Anthro, even bought our purses and shoes there. See why we were invited? ha.
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