Social Inequality at School
Each student enters an educational institution for a reason. Be it career, pleasure, new skills, or new acquaintances. In either scenario, students have to understand that in a few years, their education will be finished and there would come a time to plan everything anew. Therefore, the time in the university has to be managed wisely. Personally, to achieve this, I would need to employ a range of strategies including time and stress management, goal setting, and positive thinking. The scrutiny of these strategies will help me understand what is needed for my student life and further success.
Time Management
Time management (TM) is one of the most essential skills for each person with no regard for his or her occupation. TM allows a person to be more effective at almost any task. In education, it helps prioritize and manage events in personal life, schedule learning activities, and allocate time in an informed manner (Aggar, Bloomfield, Frotjold, Thomas, & Koo, 2018). By planning time, a person sets a framework where there is no time left for procrastination. In an environment where there are many events and tasks, it is absolutely necessary to employ a strategy to keep them all organized in a personal schedule. It is undoubtful that building solid TM skills requires time and effort but once the basis is established further student and professional life becomes more organized and effective. A systematic approach to time management is what I am interested in.
As such, it is paramount to identify key areas in which I am lacking as a successful person and nurse and define possible interventions that could address those issues. Several steps of implementation will be required. For instance, it troubles me that procrastination and the Internet take too much of my time that could be otherwise allocated to studies, personal, and professional development. As a suitable TM intervention strategy, I will schedule all the events in accordance with their level of urgency and significance while also allocating spare time. By following the procedure every day, I will form a practice that would allow me to perform better as a student and as a nurse in future.
Stress Management
Stress management (SM) is an essential skill for a nurse both in education and in practice. Stress often leads to burnouts, various psychological side effects, and, consequently to the decrease in productivity. Such an adverse factor should be eliminated as an issue that undermines the quality of learning and working experience. According to Spitrey (2015), one of the challenging events in nursing education is exams. The amount of stress student face before, during and after examinations could be overwhelming. Stress usually harms the outcomes as it affects concentration and memory, which poses a necessity to combat it.
A variety of techniques could be used to withstand this type of adversity. Relaxation techniques could be one of them. Deep breathing, distractions, visualizations, music, physical exercise and other methods could help manage stress. However, relaxation seems to deal with the symptoms rather than the cause. What I am interested in particular is stress prevention. This kind of SM requires effort at a deeper level. The progressive building of resistive attitude towards possible stressors could be the SM strategy that would help me cope with stress in general. It could not only address the fear of exams and perform better in university but also create a solid fundament for my future nursing professional experience. Therefore, to be successful in managing stress, I have to work on psychological level and start building a better self in the long-term perspective.
Goal Setting
Another strategy that would help me strive towards becoming an excellent student and nurse specialist is goal setting (GS). GS seems to be the universally positive strategy to be an effective person as it enables organizing every personal activity and use of resources to achieve a certain outcome. As opposed to the vague realization of the reasoning for certain actions, GS proposes a clear vision of what needs to be done and why. GS may also be a hierarchic structure comprised of several interdependent elements or smaller goals and actions (Martin & Elliot, 2016). Thus, my final professional development goal is to become a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) and achieve a master’s degree in nurse anesthesia.
In order to achieve this goal, I have to finish my bachelor program in nursing. That small goal also contains specific actions such as passing exams, studying peer-reviewed articles on anesthesia, participate in seminars, attend lectures, and so on. This comprehensive pyramid of goals will allow me to have a clear outlook on my education and professional life, which will ultimately lead me to success.
Positive Thinking
Positive thinking (PT) is the strategy that will help me maintain my motivation and not to succumb to despair due to the hardships of studying. PT is an essential skill in nursing career due to the fact that in hospital patients are burdened by various conditions that make them depressed. Being surrounded by depressed people could affect the psychological condition of a professional and undermine work satisfaction. In order to tackle these issues, I always have to be mindful of the positive sides of the education process and future occupation. In every unfortunate occasion, I will find something that will help me cope with the onset of depression in order to stay focused and high-spirited. PT has been extensively studied and proved to have an influence on success in acquiring knowledge (Tsai, Chang, & Lo, 2018). Therefore, it is paramount to practice it in my educational path with furthering the attitude to professional sphere.
Implementation of the Strategies
TM, SM, GS, and PT are the four strategies that I will implement in my bachelor education experience. By making them part of my life I will not only achieve better results in studies, but I will also create a solid background of practices that will aid me in practically every sphere of life. Time management will make me organized and focused by helping me overcome procrastination. Stress management will enable me to develop resilience towards pressure. Goal setting will let me strategize my life and follow the plan. Positive thinking will allow me to maintain the steady pace of life while not letting minor misfortunes to divert me from my educational and professional goals. By employing these four strategies, I am positive that I will become a successful student and future CRNA.
Conclusion
The present brainstorm and review of the strategies that will aid me in attaining success enabled me to structurize my inner thought-process paradigm. In addition, it motivated me to take action and become a better person. Finally, this assignment enhanced my self-assessment skills and created a clearer vision of the future.
References
Aggar, C., Bloomfield, J., Frotjold, A., Thomas, T., & Koo, F. (2018). A time management intervention using simulation to improve nursing students’ preparedness for medication administration in the clinical setting: A quasi-experimental study. Collegian, 25(1), 105-111.
Martin, A. J., & Elliot, A. J. (2016). The role of personal best (PB) goal setting in students’ academic achievement gains. Learning and Individual Differences, 45, 222-227.
Spitrey, J. (2015). How to succeed in nursing school. Web.
Tsai, C. Y., Chang, Y. H., & Lo, C. L. (2018). Learning under time pressure: Learners who think positively achieve superior learning outcomes from creative teaching methods using picture books. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 27, 55-63.