Confessions of a nursing student hoarder

I have something to confess: I’m a student hoarder. (I guess this time life imitates reality TV.) I don’t know how to throw things away.

Hoarder–a person who accumulates things and hides them away for future use.

I’ve made hoarding a scholarly endeavor.
Student hoarder–a student who accumulates school-related material and hides it away for future use.

Yep, that’s me. That random textbook that you purchased for one of your core curriculum classes? Yeah, I still have it. Or the notes you took from that same random class? Yeah, I still have them, too.

Even with the advanced means of technology we students have these days, I still purchase and keep paper products, study aides and quirky supplies ad nauseum.

I still feel in my gut that SOONER or LATER I’m going to need that one little thing I kept from six years ago. There will be this ominous moment when I’m studying or out in practice and some topic will come up for which I’ll NEED that textbook or note I’ve kept locked away. It will–all of a sudden–become useful and important again.

I also believe that the minute I throw away the object in question (because I cracked under the pressure to discard it from those I will not name), the moment will appear before my very eyes when I will need it. Then the years of storing that one item will have been all for naught, because I foolishly threw it away like it was unimportant.

You’re laughing, but there is quite a bit of truth to my words. I’ve been a nurse for just shy of 10 years now, and I didn’t throw away my introductory class notes or textbooks from my diploma program nursing school until just this past summer, and I’m getting my Master’s in nursing right now. And the only reason I parted ways with such important material is I didn’t have any more room to store my notes. I had to make room for new material–I had just finished a whopper of a summer semester in my Acute Care Nurse Practitioner program and I had lots of information I needed to hang on to!

Oh, trust me. I’m well aware I need help.

P.S. Please take this blog post with a heaping dose of humor. Besides, when you’re a career student like myself, you just may need all those notes!