Student Feature: Jecy Santa Ana, Nursing Student

What motivated you to pursue this field of study, and when/why did you develop a passion for this area of study?

I am a third year nursing student at University of Manitoba. To start off, nursing was actually my second top undergraduate course choice. However, I already knew as I was growing up that I wanted to be one of the healthcare professionals and be part of the health care team. At first, it did not completely sink in that I would have a burning passion in nursing since it was not the field I intended to go into after graduating from high school. Though this idea had started to change when I began doing my clinical rotations. Being in a clinical setting and working with patients and their family is gratifying. The interactions I had with all my patients gave me a purpose of why I want to continue this degree. I was able to develop a great relationship with my patients and had a chance to know them even in a short-given amount time.

Are you able to have a positive and effective school-life balance? How would you describe it? Is it something that took time to figure out?

It took quite a while for me to have a positive and effective school-life balance and I can say that I am still working on it every single day. During my first two years in university under University 1 and General Sciences, all I could do was to study for hours in my room or in the university's library and barely got a chance to spend time with my friends or family. I tried to go to the gym to do my workout routine, but it was not consistent unlike when I was still in high school. As the time went by, I was able to manage and somehow have this positive and effective school-life balance. I started to value the importance of my mental health and time spent with those who are dear to me. I also found it important to set aside time for myself to counteract the ceaseless study time. I am continuously learning to be gentler and kinder to myself.

What are some challenges you faced so far in your education?

The most challenging part for me so far was my first two years in university. I believe that this challenge brought a huge impact to my life. It taught me my strengths and aspects in my life that still need development and improvement. I finished high school receiving a prestige scholarship that would cover my entire four years of undergraduate. However, I came to a point where I experienced an utmost burnout. I was able to reach my desired grade point average at first, but along the way, I could sense a rapid decline in my mental health that caused me to experience multiple breakdowns, burnouts and worsen my anxiety and depression. In an instant, I lost my focus in studying which lowered my grade point average gradually. Unfortunately, these factors all added up which caused me to lose the scholarship by the end of my second year. Considering this event, coupled with the fact that my self-esteem was not at its best, I decided not pursue pharmacy for a while and decided to see how nursing school would treat me. It was the most challenging experience for me because I started with a plan in my head, applied and went through some scholarship interviews prior to the first year of university and had set my personal goals ahead of time. However, sometimes there will be some setbacks that can happen. I felt lost and questioned my own capability which caused my self-esteem to decline through time.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Know yourself worth. Do not let other people’s opinion rule your mind and your decisions because you know more about yourself than others. Listen to your body and never neglect your mental health because it is vital. It is okay to drop courses when things are getting out of your hands.

What do you believe is the most exclusive or special part of your field of study?

I think the most special part in nursing is you can get to know your patients as a whole and not just based on their diagnoses. Although I am still a student nurse, I believe that nurses are the patient’s advocate and closest confidants. During my clinical rotations from both long-term care facility and hospital, I had plenty of moments when majority of my patients opened up about their personal lives. Even if it was their intimate past experiences, about their marriages and families or their current experiences. I was fortunate enough to hear unique stories from each one of them. Without me having to initiate the conversation, my patients felt comfortable enough to share their stories with me. This showed me that they trusted me enough and are comfortable with me. I find moments like this rewarding as a nursing student.

What is the most exciting thing that happened in your journey? What is the most exciting part of your every day?

Attending clinical must be the most exciting part of my nursing journey. I admit that it can be a nerve cracking experience because I must talk and collaborate with other members of the health care team to ensure the patient’s safety but at the same time, the excitement is still in there. Talking to my patients also excites me because every day I can learn something new from them. The most exciting part of my every day is when I can take a rest from studying and have time for myself. I just turn on my Spotify playlist and lay in bed as part of my self-care routine.

What are your favorite classes in school?

My favourite classes I took were microbiology, calculus, Korean, and pathophysiology/pharmacology (I will be bias but pharmacology over weighs the pathophysiology when it comes to my favourites). These days, I enjoy and am fond of my acute and chronic illness class which focuses on enhancing nursing critical thinking skills to provide nursing care to the individuals and families experiencing acute and chronic illness.  I also love working on every case study we have in this class.

Are your classes now online? Was that a big adjustment/ how are you adjusting? Has COVID made a big impact in terms of your education?

Majority of my classes are online, except for my skills lab and my clinical. I took some online or distance ed courses prior to nursing and it was a challenging time. Therefore, when COVID-19 arose and the university decided to conduct all the classes online, I already knew that it was going to be tough. It took time for me to adjust because I needed to take about four to five courses online. I found that online classes can have advantages and disadvantages for students. In my cases, the advantage is I have freedom to do my work whenever I want but it is also a disadvantage for me at the same time because procrastination is my worst enemy. Therefore, making schedules on how I am going to split my study time works well to stay organized and not to fall behind so much from studying. 

Also, going to clinical after the government released restrictions regarding COVID had been frightening for all of us students. Especially when we heard about multiple hospitals and long-term care facilities experienced COVID outbreaks. However, with the proper donning of personal protective equipment and following the precaution guidelines helps to decrease the anxiousness we feel whenever we are in the hospital and providing direct care to our patients.

What are some big differences between high school and university?

In high school, all latest content was covered in class and homework is just add ons and reinforce what you learned in class. While in university, you will have to do a lot of independent learning outside your regular lecture hours. Secondly, you can contact your teachers in high school easily when you have courses related questions or you just want to have small talks about life. However, in some universities, sometimes it can be hard to contact your professors if you have questions related to the materials. You can email your professors if you have a simple question and wait for about 24-48 hours (about 2 days) for a response. But if your question needs an in-depth explanation, where email is not sufficient, you must book an appointment with your professors to have a one-to-one talk. 

When it comes to grade distribution, your grades are based on multiple homework or papers you have worked on, multiple quizzes and unit tests, and final exams in high school. In university on the other hand, some courses can only have midterm exams, final exams, papers and lab reports or lab exams (if applicable) to finalize your letter grade. Some courses will have some quizzes, i-clicker participations, discussions, and presentations to contribute some marks for your final letter grade as well. Lastly, if in high school you are only working with the people in your class that consist of twenty people, in university it is different (depending on the faculty). For example, when I took chemistry during my very first term, I was able to work with this group of people and worked with this young man as my lab partner. But during the following term, I was working with a different group of people in the lab and my partner was a different student. You will work a lot with different students in university and it helps to break from your comfort zone gradually.

What are your goals in the future? How do you plan to achieve them?

After my bachelor's degree in nursing I want to work with children and hopefully be a pediatric nurse. Then, do a two to three years' work experience under my nursing degree. And if my decision is still the same after a couple of years, I will continue my prerequisites for pharmacy and hopefully to study and be at that field in the future.

Is there anything you wish you did differently in terms of your education?

I should have taken 3 courses each term instead of 4 courses when I could already sense that there was something off with my mental health. I think that dropping courses would boost up my grade point average even more and continued my prerequisites for pharmacy at this point.

Why did you pick the place you go to school?

To begin with, I felt compelled to escape Winnipeg and wanted to experience a new environment after high school. Therefore, I decided to do some research about pharmacy schools across Canada besides the University of Manitoba. In high school, all of my attention was drawn to the University of Toronto because it has been consistently ranked as top pharmacy faculty in Canada and one of the top five in the world. I felt that I was going to grow and learn a lot from this university. However, I ended up staying and going to the University of Manitoba instead because I did all my scholarship interviews here in Winnipeg and received multiple scholarships from the University. 

Did anything surprise you when you became a university student?

The only thing that surprised me when I became a university student was how fast paced every term. 

Did you find the switch from high school to university challenging/ a big adjustment?

The transition from high school to university was indeed challenging and took some time to adapt to the environment. University was a whole new world for me when I stepped out from high school. I had to be more organized in terms of making my study schedule and important due dates. I had to alter a little bit on how I should study and explore what would be the best way for me to learn the materials effectively.

Any advice for current high school students wanting to study sciences in the future?

University is not a sprint but a marathon. We all have different paces. You may love a certain course from high school but despise it in university, and that is okay. Explore during your first year about what really interests you and believe that you can see yourself doing it for the rest of your life with satisfaction. It is okay to listen to other people’s advice but at the end of the day it is your life, your own path and whatever you think is going to benefit you and help you learn, grow, and achieve your goals while remaining grounded and without being harsh on yourself, do it. It is okay to drop courses if you know that it is going to help you remain mentally healthy and your goal is to have a high grade point average to enter a specific faculty you desire.  

 Lastly, for the high school students who want to pursue any field under health sciences faculty, study not because you just want to pass. Study because you want to learn and broaden your knowledge. I have this screenshot on my phone saying, “Student, you do not study to pass the test. You study to prepare for the day when you are the only thing between a patient and the grave.” It sounds kind of intimidating, but it became an important reminder for me whenever I feel like giving up from studying. It is going to be a long journey and will take a lot of time and effort but be gentle to yourself and be optimistic that it is going to be worth it at the end.