Potato Lessons on College Life

1. For nursing students on their first day in the hospital: you’ll be told to bring biscuits and snacks and of course you will, because you don’t know that you could just go out and buy some food in the stalls there. In fact, you don’t know anything in the hospital yet which makes you anxious and overly naive to touch anything there. Then after 3 years, though you won’t bring biscuits to duty anymore, you’ll be more anxious because you barely learned anything but there won’t be any excuses. So don’t waste your time. Go tag along with the staff when they do catheterization, when the doctor’s intubating, when your CI is preparing meds. Expose yourself to as much input as available in the hospital NOW. Because every “NEXT TIME” said is a chance of a time lost.

2. Attend welcome/acquaintance party if you want to know the people in your college. I think it’s the only occasion where everybody wears themselves at most.

3. Watch TV, lie down with your favourite music plugged in your ears, take long walks, just pass time with your buddies in the food court, stop and stare, join the volleyball team or any sport you’re good at, cut classes for your most awaited movie once in a while, fall in love. College is not a substitute to life. It’s just another part of it.

4. Expect that you’ll spend fat amount of money in photocopying handouts if you don’t have the books. Reference finding is a very useful skill in college. This will help you save your last money from unannounced photocopying emergencies. There’s one place where all you can find everything you need. Remember Library? (or here: NursingCrib, Scribd)

5. Keep your notes and handouts. During your sophomore year, you’ll feel that they are least helpful. But I say, keep them all sound and somewhere easy to find. You are going back to them someday soon.

6. Do not make your high school love wait for that ‘yes’ until you both finish college. You might go separate lives somewhere along the way anyway, might as well live the present and strike through what ifs. Then if you are still together after all, what’s there to regret about?

7. As a famous poem says, do not compare yourself with others, for there are greater and lesser person than you are. Most of all, be the self you are most comfortable, be it you wearing flats when everybody else you know at high school seems to grow 10 years of womanhood just because of those hills, be it you liking girls instead of boys or the opposite. There’s nothing wrong with sticking on something you like even most people don’t. In fact, you managed to accomplish the task of the decade – to establish yourself among others. Many people my age now is still confused because somewhere at your age now they lost themselves by compromising it with acceptance.

8. Do your best in class every day. How you spend each day in college is of course how you make your transcript. Because you’d always look back in college which will all be in blurry 5 years from now, but your transcript remains in bold letters. However, this may be for self-satisfaction purposes only. If that doesn't bother you (like it didn’t bother me), never mind. XD

9. Be courteous and grateful. No matter who you are, you will need other people along the way. People around you may seem not particular with it but one of my good friends said, “always say PLEASE and THANK YOU”.

9.5 Be a true friend. Only then you’ll have one (or six). And they will be the best (or maddest) part of college.

10. Because I can’t think of anything else and lists usually come in 10s, I’d give you something that was just told to me, too. “It's okay to confess love to your professor. It's either you get busted or thrown out of the classroom or you get love in return“. Trust me, that was told by the coolest teacher on earth.