Deferring a year - yay or nay?

Is there any reason except finances that you want to defer? Nursing is fairly easy to work along side, except maybe on placement, by doing shifts with nhs professionals or hospital bank. Nhs professionals take student nurses with 6 months experience and you can work as and when you choose.

How do you feel spending another year volunteering would help you? Edge hill are obviously happy that you are ready to start this year so extra volunteering is not necessary.

If it is a lack of confidence I can tell you that nursing does help bring it out in you and you will certainly find that your cohort will be a friendly bunch. Nursing students tend to be more mature and a friendly bunch so don't worry about bullying.

I trained at edge hill, although it was adult nursing for me, so if you have any questions please let me know and I will see if I can help.

The likelihood is that won't happen. There will always be people who you simply don't get along with and can make work a little difficult but you have to get on with the job and look after your patient. But I think, on the whole, you will find people are suportive.

People won't set out to make you feel bad but you have to be prepared to take criticism. Nursing is all about lifelong learning and it is a steep learning curve at the beginning. People won't want to upset you but you may find sometimes they can seem to critique harshly, but this is only if they need to step in or overide you for patient safety. They should always explain their criticisms to you. As long as you realise that its about helping you become a better nurse you'll be fine.

Additionally think of it this way. Even if there are people who are hard to get a long with (unfortuantely there are people in nursing who's personalities are not right for nursing) and seem like they are trying to make life hard for you, it is only a short placement and at the end you can leave and never go back. But the good will always outnumber the bad... and you can always tell your mentor/uni if someone is really upsetting you.

Plus, this isn't school. These will be adults you're working with. There will be bitchiness (an unfortunate truth of working with women) but any bullies will be a lot fewer and farther between than at school... most people grow out of it.

Hope that helps a little

That has helped me loads, thank you so much. You've settled my anxieties on this subject to be honest, just have to remember that any critique of my actions is because they are trying to better me so I can take care of the patients efficiently. I guess I also need to harden up a little because from being bullied I'm a little sensitive. I'm sure a few months on a nursing course will sort that out though! It's also true what you said about the placement being short term, I might as well get it done and get my grade then leave and hopefully enjoy my next placement a lot more. Thank you so much again. I'm going to keep that somewhere so I can read it later on in the year.