College became a whole new experience for me and 49 of my peers as we entered our first semester of nursing school this school year. No one knew what to expect, just that we were proud to be sitting together with one another. Many of us have friends that are further along in the program that we look up to for guidance but overall the experience is different for each entering class and no amount of advice can prepare us for the next four semesters.
There are so many perceptions of nursing school and what nurses do that I was easily able to demonstrate some of those perceptions in my first meme (see figure 1). I used the media convergence principle of ekphrasis to describe each of my images through written language. I specifically chose each image to represent how different groups in society and in my life generally view nursing school. No one really knows what it is like unless they are a student in the program, therefore each image shows what different groups think I do and what the program involves. The last image represents what nursing school has really been like this semester…tons and tons of studying. The overall argument of my first meme is that when it comes down to it nursing school is all about studying and the image shows that it can be tiring. This leads in to my second meme which represents a common feeling among nursing students.
Figure 1
I used the same image from my first meme to represent that the studying continues and doesn’t get easier (see figure 2). Many nursing students joke about having no social life once school starts because the classes and workload take so much free time away so going out with friends or doing much at all gets a lot harder to manage. That is why I chose the text I did for this meme, with the date corresponding to the year the first school of nursing was established. My final meme (see figure 3) relates to the second meme because one of the most distinguished part of the nursing program is that in the end you are prepared to take the N-CLEX RN and all the answers on the test are correct but the best answer has to be chosen. From the very first test the first semester we take similar exams to help prepare us for the N-CLEX but it is still possible to fail the class exams and the state board, even though all the answers are technically correct.
Figure 2
Figure 3
All of the memes are representing some perception of nursing school and the amount of studying and dedication needed to go through the program. The first meme relates to a diverse audience because I picked out different groups in my life that view nursing very differently. Not only could a nursing student relate to the argument and enjoy the meme but any of the other people I mentioned could also if that is really how they perceive the program. The second and third meme keep one of the same images and create arguments that stem from the study overload shown in the first meme. All the work nursing school creates takes away from our social lives and probably has been since the first school opened back in 1873. The final meme argues that even with all the studying and social sacrifices, passing the N-CLEX and even classroom exams is difficult because of the correct answer formatting associated with the nursing program.
Jordan 