While faithfully respecting my 10:30 pm bedtime, eating healthy, and maintaining a moderate level of exercise, I still find myself at confused, in tears, or utterly exhausted due to the stresses of school and personal expectations. Whatever stress relievers students have in their bag-o-skills, I’m sure that they are reaching in and utilizing them. My classmates and I come from different paths of life, but we are converging at an intersection and traveling this challenging, yet supremely rewarding journey together for the next two years. Some of the best advice I have received lately has come from a group of supportive peers and staff that have only been acquainted for 9 weeks. Friends’ and professors’ words of wisdom offer encouragement and charge up that internal battery that says “keep going.” Getting through the nursing program is a challenge that involves not only academic success, but personal growth and emotional transformations. Fellow nursing students share tears, joys, excitement, and miseries while connecting at a different, and maybe more intimate level than would be expected in other long-lasting friendships. Life in Nursing School is an emotional rollercoaster. Caring for others is humbling and nerve-wracking because a mistake or a failure in the world of health care involves someone else’s life. Before coming to JHU SON, the majority of us were accustomed to doing things correctly the first time, excelling in academics and extra-curricular activities. It is excellent to be at this institution, but the learning curve is steep and instructors are sure to notify students when something isn’t completed in the correct fashion. The educators in the school and the clinic absolutely expect the most from the future nurses that they invest themselves in. My only advice for incoming students would be to fasten your seatbelt, because you are going for a ride…