My Bachelor of Science in Nursing Exit Examination was  just about a month ago, but I never got around to posting much about it.  As mentioned in my previous post, my exit exam was a 180-question exam to be completed within three hours. It essentially was a culmination of the whole program where everything and anything we learned over the last couple of years was fair game. My last term of nursing school was an 8-week review course of those topics to prepare for this exam. I had decided a earlier that I was not going to be one of those students who posted threatening handwritten signs on the limited amount of study room doors addressing the fact that they were studying for exits and should not be bother. That sense of entitlement and my-problems-are-bigger-than-yours is something I am definitely not about. I was thankful that my friends were game about getting a place just far enough from Los Angeles to study.

After my last topic-focused proctored exam before exits, I spent a couple of days of solo studying before heading out to Orange County for our exit review getaway. There was just something calming about being in the presence of my friends who were preparing for the same endgame. Granted I’m sure our stress were at different levels, but just being around each other, for me, was certainly calming. We spent three nights of reviewing, testing, drilling, and the mandatory wind downs at the end of the night.

We ended up checking out the morning the day before our exam. I had every intention of just relaxing the remainder of the day, but come 6:00 PM I was overcome with a cloud of sudden stress and studied till about 11:00 PM. Eeks. Because of that I was worried I would wake up with the same kind of anxiety for my 7:00 AM exam. However, when I woke up that morning, the calm I felt was something else. For such a crucial test, I was surprised I wasn’t hair-pulling, tachycardic, hyperverbal anxiety-ridden. But ain’t no complaints here. I took about 90 minutes on the test, and had to wait another two-hours to find out if I passed. The uncertainty in the room was scattered, but as soon as results were revealed the tears of joy, lots of laughter, and an overwhelming wave of feelings of accomplishment was felt throughout.

After taking multiple pictures, one of my friends had bought an absurd amount of party poppers and planned on heading to the top of our parking structure to essentially end with a big ol’ bang. Not to my own surprise, mine didn’t go off when everyone else’s did – but I rather would have failed this than my exam. That’s for sure.

We had only general plans for our post-exit celebrations. We ended up in Little Tokyo which is in Downtown Los Angeles. We had some lunch, drinks, and definitely did a whole lot of karaoke. I got to hang out with peers who I honestly never saw outside of school and it was really nice to be able to celebrate the completion of this journey together. At the end of the night, some of my closest friends and I closed it out with dinner at Perch.

All these lovely folks you see above could very well be your nurse one day and you would be in excellent hands – without a doubt.

As I prepare for my NCLEX, I’m going to try diligently to catch this blog up on my life because boy has this been looking sad.

Till next time.