Find Your Match
Combining Speed Friending with a Mentor-Mentee Program for Future Nurses
By Ruth Beyene, Courtney Cohen, and Marisa Astiz-Martinez
Starting nursing school is a challenging transition, and new students often face intense stress and anxiety as they adjust. Studies show that nursing students have an average stress score of 3.70 on a 5-point scale, which highlights how common and overwhelming these feelings can be( Zheng et al., 2022). Although there is substantial research on the shift from nursing school to practice, less attention has been given to the initial leap into nursing programs. Many students feel unsupported during this critical time( McDonald et al., 2018).
The University of Maryland School of Nursing at Universities of Shady
36 NSNA Imprint
Grove( UMSON @ USG) campus offers a fast-paced, two-year program with clinical schedules that often prevent students from overlapping on campus. This leaves many new students feeling isolated, which makes the need for mentorship especially urgent,
The mission of the Breakthrough to Nursing( BTN) Committee of the National Student Nurses’ Association( NSNA), a professional organization for nursing students, is to support cultural competence and ease the transition for students entering nursing school and the profession by creating an environment of understanding, support, and encouragement. To help address the challenges students face transitioning into nursing, the University of Maryland Association of Nursing Students( UMANS), the NSNA chapter of UMSON @ USG, launched a Speed Friending event. The Speed Friending event offers new students an opportunity to connect with senior nursing students who have experienced similar challenges. The goal of the event is to encourage attendees to sign up for the UMANS Mentor-Mentee, a peer mentoring program, either as a mentor or mentee.
By providing mentorship and emotional support, this program not only helps students build professional