With an array of opportunities, Canada is a prime attraction amongst international nursing students. The country recognizes the importance of nurses and truly values them. In this context, you must know that now is the right time to study nursing in Canada.
Being one of the most in-demand professionals, nurses with a remarkable skillset of dealing with diverse patient care requirements are highly preferred. Trusting the facts, the country needs more than 60,000 nurses by 2020 to fill the labor shortage. Hence, if you’re an Internationally Educated Nurse (IEN) planning to study nursing in Canada, do not think twice before acting upon it.
Things that prove to be an advantage when studying nursing in Canada
Every year, thousands of international students flock into nursing school. The process of successfully getting into your preferred program and chosen school can be lengthy and time consuming.
After you’ve secured your admission, you must count your blessings in order to make the experience of studying nursing in Canada smooth. So what all can help you to make studying nursing in Canada easier? Here we have a list to help you know better.
1. Work experience
With a prior work experience of being a nurse in your home country or any other country, you can explore your chances of finding good part time jobs in healthcare or related areas. Young international students studying nursing in Canada have a high scope of finding part time work opportunities while they study. This way, you can utilize your work experience from back home to create new opportunities in Canada.
Having a prior work experience also helps you to understand the lessons more effectively since you can visualize a few practical learning scenarios in your head. When you’re studying nursing in Canada, the methodologies are very different but at some point, you can still use your former practical experience to brush up your skills better.
2. Research Experience
Yes, of course it is not mandatory to have research experience to study nursing in Canada. However, it can help you maximize your learning by taking cues from the existing research experience. In nursing, any opportunity to be involved in research projects is valuable because it definitely teaches you some lesson or the other. So, the more your research experience, the better exposure you get while studying nursing in Canada.
3. Extracurricular Activities
Nurses, your field is a competitive one in terms of recognition, knowledge, skills and opportunities. To ace your nursing career in Canada, you must always learn from your extracurricular pursuits.
The more you indulge in extracurricular activities, the closer you inch to your dream of becoming a Global Nurse. We say so because the primary goal of extracurricular activities is to prepare you for a future career path, teaching you about teamwork, leadership and dedication.
So, whether you’re studying nursing in Canada or you’re planning to study in any other part of the world, your extracurricular experience will prove to be helpful for you.
4. Early submission of your admission application
Applying early to study nursing in Canada is important because the handful of leading colleges in Canada receive multiple applications and the ones that are accurate and on time, are given priority. Usually, colleges in Canada offer three intakes every year in the months of January, May and September. Each of these intakes have specific cut-off dates by which the admission process should be completed and closed. The admission process starts six to eight months before an intake and closes usually three to four months in advance for every intake. Hence, when you read “Apply Early” it means you must apply six to eight months in advance to get your application processed on time.
5. Practicing your interview skills
After all the hard work of studying nursing in Canada, when you’re finally planning to apply for a suitable job role, you’d definitely like to prepare yourself for an interview.
Guess what? If you keep your skills updated on a daily basis, there’s a high possibility that you can be better at your first interview without being too stressed about it. Practicing your interview skills is more like a self-help activity, which rarely goes in vein. It helps you improve your chances of successfully getting desired job you’ve been eyeing for quite a while.
Here, in this video you can find tips and suggestions on how to answer most common behavioral based interview questions, with utmost ease and confidence. We hope this helps you to hone your interview skills for better.
What is also counted as a part of your preparation is the fact that you must be updated about the latest developments happening around you in the world of nursing. It is important to know your profession inside out and have your opinions on professional developments taking place around you. Subscribing to nursing magazines can prove to be a great deal of help to keep yourself updated about the ever-evolving field of nursing.
Put It All Together
So, all the points mentioned above only state the advantages in terms of your academic and personal grooming.
To become a successful nurse, you must understand what your definition of “success” means and then work uninterruptedly towards attaining it. Consider all the skills you have, the ones you need to replenish and most importantly, the new ones you need to build from scratch. Sum up all the information that you need and take a step ahead towards becoming a Global Nurse.
The profession of nursing has come a long way and in the years to come, it won’t be like what it is now. That’s the best part about it. Nursing is truly one of the best careers because it’s always evolving.
