Call it a major crisis, an identity crisis or even a quarter-life crisis when it happens.

Students hit this mark typically around their second or third college year when they begin questioning if what they’re studying is what they want to dedicate nearly the rest of their lives to. For some, it does feel like a crisis when the overwhelming wave of sudden confusion strikes and one thinks they no longer know who they are for a moment.

For others — particularly our current nurses and student nurses — it feels more like a reality check.

Let’s face it: Nursing is hard. Not only can the actual job be difficult, but the process of becoming a nurse is far from easy. I thought I knew, at the tender age of five, exactly what my dream was when my kindergarten teacher asked my class what we wanted to be when we grew up. We made paper hats to represent our future careers, and mine had a nurse’s white cap with a red ‘+’ like what was portrayed in cartoons.

Through years of pondering various other studies from the sciences to the arts, I kept being drawn back to nursing. I question now that if I knew then what I know today, would I have stuck with that decision?

U.S. News has reported that about one in five nurses have quit their jobs and/or changed careers since the beginning of the pandemic. Many are experiencing burnout from the repetitive waves of coronavirus outbreaks and variants, alongside poor or unfair treatment and pay from hospital employers.

Hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers are speaking up about the mental and physical strain brought on by trying to fight the virus. As nurses leave their positions, staff-to-patient ratios are broadening as more people fall ill.

Student nurses are seeing their idols reveal bruised faces from months of wearing extra protective gear during their shifts. Healthcare workers are getting less breaks from attempting to revive flatlining patients. Nurses are being rewarded stickers and dry pens for witnessing nearly six million coronavirus-related deaths while treating millions more.

Nursing students fear that instead of living their dream, they’ll be sent down the road that many others left, and more patients will receive less care.

Even with the focus on COVID-19 and the nursing shortage, the process of becoming a nurse is just as tough as it has been. The difficulty of nursing classes and prerequisites isn’t always the biggest inspiration-booster, let alone the cost for those who are struggling financially. Didn’t pass anatomy? Gotta wait another year to retake it when it’s offered again. There’s another few thousand bucks out of the bank account that’s beginning to resemble a drought.

While my peers stay up at 3 a.m. trying to memorize each stage of the Citric Acid Cycle, the questions pop into their sleep-deprived minds, “How worth it will this really be? Why does this have to be hard?”

The feeling is contradicting. Each time I contemplate changing majors, I imagine every other option, and it’s almost freeing for a second. At the same time, I feel guilty for picturing it. Honestly, I often feel embarrassed — ashamed even — for considering ditching a career path that is in desperate need of more workers for the sake of global health.

Students in nursing are enduring the same courses and daily caffeine as always while watching nurses, who did the same, willingly leave their jobs. Then when they find this discouraging, more are influenced to switch their studies before they feel it’s too late.

Many students have proposed ideas of lightening the load of entry exams, prerequisite courses and fees that go with them, expressing that it would increase their confidence with finishing nursing school. A change can help introduce more nurses into the field, so as we watch current nurses struggle, nursing students can stand with them and contribute to improving the field as a whole.

This is by no means to scare anyone away from becoming a nurse. If you are one of the many nursing students at Seattle Pacific University and you feel that you are struggling, you are not alone. If you feel that the path is right for you, you will find a way to get through it.

Whether you are someone who strives to pass the finish line or move on to something else, you will discover what works best for you. And who knows? Maybe this generation of nursing students will be the ones to bring the end of the pandemic at last.