This Month’s Highlight: TBD: Becoming the Nurses, and the People, We Are Still Growing Into

I recently started the final year of my graduate nursing program, and to mark the occasion, I took a picture much like the ones elementary school children take on the first day of school. I stood beside a chalkboard that announced I was in 21st grade21st grade. Under the familiar prompt, "What I want to be when I grow up," I had written, "TBD." It was meant to be funny; it was also unexpectedly honest.

By this point in our education, many of us have been asked countless times what we plan to do with our degrees. Some of us are pursuing a master’s degree to become nurse practitioners or nurse educators. Some are completing a DNP program, preparing for the intensity and responsibility of nurse anesthesia practice, or pursuing a PhD focused on nursing science and discovery. Many of us entered a program with a clear vision of the role we wanted to inhabit and the difference we hoped to make. Some of us can still describe that plan with confidence. Others have watched it change as coursework, clinical experiences, research, mentors, and life opened new possibilities. Some of us are approaching graduation this semester with no idea what comes next. All three experiences belong here.

When we ask, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" we are rarely asking only about a job. We are asking about identity. We are asking how someone understands their place in the world, what they value, and how they imagine contributing to others' lives. For graduate nursing students, that question can feel especially complicated because graduate education is not simply preparation for a position, but preparation for a new professional identity. We are learning to think, communicate, make decisions, lead, advocate, teach, conduct research, and practice with greater independence and responsibility. We are becoming someone who can inhabit a new role, even while parts of us still feel like students trying to figure things out.

Our roles as graduate nursing students and graduate-prepared nurses can differ, but they share a common challenge: we are learning not only what to do but also who we are within the work. That in-between space can be disorienting. We may feel certain in one setting and unsure in another. We may be experienced nurses who suddenly feel like beginners again. We may recognize our own competence intellectually while still waiting to feel it emotionally. We may wonder whether we truly belong in the rooms we have worked so hard to enter. This is where imposter syndrome often finds an opening.

Imposter syndrome can make ordinary uncertainty feel like evidence that we are unqualified. A difficult exam, an unfamiliar clinical situation, a complex anesthesia case, a challenging teaching moment, a research problem, or a comparison with a polished classmate can quickly become a story about who we are: I should know more. I should be further along. Everyone else seems certain. Maybe I am the only one who does not belong here.

Graduate nursing programs are demanding in different ways, but nearly all of them ask us to stretch beyond what is familiar. This experience is not unusual. In one study of graduate nursing students, 88% of survey respondents reported moderate to intense impostor phenomenon (Scanlan et al., 2023). Nurse practitioner students may question whether they are ready to make advanced clinical decisions. Nurse educator students may wonder whether their clinical experience is enough to make them effective teachers. DNP students may feel caught between frontline practice and organizational leadership. CRNA students may confront the weight of constant vigilance and high-consequence decisions. PhD students may wonder whether their questions are important enough, their methods strong enough, or their voices authoritative enough to contribute to the scholarly conversation.

Role transitions rarely happen as cleanly as a syllabus suggests, and our role identity does not appear all at once on graduation day. There is no single moment when we stop being students and suddenly feel fully prepared for the role that follows. Instead, we move through overlapping identities. We may be bedside nurses, graduate students, preceptors, parents, partners, caregivers, clinicians, teachers, researchers, leaders, and advocates all at once. Each role makes demands on us, and each one can shape how we understand the others. Even when the destination is clear, the transition itself can feel unfamiliar. We may be leaving behind a version of ourselves before we have fully met the next one. Transitions can bring excitement, grief, pressure, and ambiguity. We can be celebrating an accomplishment while mourning the loss of routines, relationships, or expectations. We can be stepping toward a role we once wanted and discovering that it looks different in practice than we imagined. That does not mean the degree was a mistake. It likely means we are paying close attention to what we are learning about ourselves.

As you begin this semester, whether it is your first or last in graduate school, you might ask yourself questions that go deeper than "What job will I get?" For example, what kind of presence do you want to bring to your practice, classroom, organization, research, or operating room? Which values do you want your decisions to reflect? What have your experiences taught you about the work that matters to you? Where do you need support, and where have you already demonstrated resilience? What would it look like to trust that a meaningful path can develop even when you cannot yet see its entire shape?

You may know exactly why you started this degree. You may have changed your mind along the way. You may still be searching for the answer. Wherever you are, you are not alone, and you are not behind. As a colleague suggested, perhaps we write "TDGT" on our chalkboards: To Do Great Things!

References

Scanlan, J. M., Laurencelle, F., & Plohman, J. (2023). Understanding the impostor phenomenon in graduate nursing students. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 20(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/ijnes-2022-0058

Kayce Cordray, BSN, RN
BS to DNP Student
Oral Roberts University
GNSA Leadership Council Member