Heading into finals, Nursing freshman Kerry McLaughlin hopes to eschew the more traditional study tactics of her peers. Trading in cram sessions and all-nighters at Van Pelt, she prefers “taco nights” with her study group and the homey study space of a dorm room decorated with Christmas lights.
With her head full of Orgo models, the impending holiday break and the promise of an exciting second semester, McLaughlin is really just trying to take life one step at a time.
“This semester has been such a blur,” she said. “If you get off track for even one day, you’ll be regretting it the next.”
Luckily, between both work and play at Penn, McLaughlin has few regrets.
“I’ve learned to stick to my own ideals and values and to do things that make you happy as a person,” she explained. “That’s the only way you’ll truly find meaning in your life.”
And McLaughlin stressed that her semester thus far has been exactly that: the challenge of finding and forging meaning in her life at Penn.
In one defining moment, McLaughlin visited the inside of an operating room at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
The trip was part of McLaughlin’s Introduction to Nursing class, in which students are paired with a Penn Nursing alumni for a sneak peek into their futures as active nurses.
McLaughlin stressed that the experience, while illuminating itself, was even more galvanizing because it served as a reminder of what to expect in coming semesters.
As a Nursing student, McLaughlin will head into the school’s clinical experience at the start of her sophomore year.
And the future prospect of applying her nursing and science foundations to a real-life experience in the clinical setting is something that has kept McLaughlin motivated through tedious study sessions.
“The most underrated thing about being a freshman is the blessing of being able to have four years ahead of us at Penn,” she chirped, adding, “we have the ability [and] potential to make whatever we want out of our career here.”
While charting her nursing future, McLaughlin plans to balance her science-heavy schedule by taking a more creative class. After being inspired by time spent working in the Fine Arts Photo Lab this fall semester, she plans on enrolling in Photography I next fall.
She figures that using time in her schedule for photography will help her relax after her more advanced Anatomy and Physiology courses, allowing her to “take a break from all of the A and P stress.”
Still, McLaughlin’s day-to-day routine isn’t all nursing, study dates and organic chemistry reviews.
Having a rowdy group of hall mates, McLaughlin enjoys the antics of her King’s Court English House neighbors, finding time together to both be relax and help kick off stress.
While she jokes that some of the experiences are “unprintable,” they have included everything from 2 a.m. dance parties to strapping one brave volunteer to the wall with duct tape.
McLaughlin said that she has also found deep friendship and success outside of the freshman haven of King’s Court.
She noted her involvement with the Penn Newman Center — an on-campus hub for the Catholic community.
“They started out as strangers but now are my second family,” she smiled, saying that he group has been instrumental in helping her find herself at Penn.
And while she’s not excited for the work of spring semester, she looks forward to the new experiences and “unexpected moments that bring people closer together” — not to mention the warmer weather.
Until then, McLaughlin plans to continue curling up in her Christmas light-covered room with her organic chemistry textbook.
She threatens with a smile, “I’m not coming out until it’s ingrained in my head.”
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