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Chen, Jing

ESL 33B

Professor Carlisi

Project 2 - Final Draft

19 October 2017

The Skills for My Major and Future Career

Section 1: Literacy Narrative: Story of my Major and Future Career

According to a survey by Hart Research, about four in five employers say

critical thinking and analytical reasoning skills are very important for recent college

graduates. Critical thinking and analytical reasoning are small branches of language

skills. Language is an art that can make people feel comfortable is necessary in my

future career. My major is nursing that decide what is my future career. I decide to

choose this major because of my family. My familys health problem is a main factor

that push me have a strong desire to learn the knowledge about medicine. In constant

learning and exploration in the professional field, i realized that i needed a lot of

learning and improvement lei me enter this become a reality in the future.

My story started 4 years ago when I immigration to the United States.

How to ensure my familys health was my important task after I immigration. One day,

my daughter felt uncomfortable and told me. Mom, I feel dizzy and I dont have

strength. Whats wrong with you? I asked. I dont know, but I feel hot, my

daughter replied. I touched her forehead and cheek that were really hot. I realized that

my daughter might have a fever. I didnt know what I need to do and I didnt even

know what caused my daughters fever that made me feel terrible. After this troubling
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health problem with my daughter, another health-related incident happened to me. My

dad got cancer, but I knew nothing about cancer and I didnt know what can I do to

help my family. The emphasis on family health makes me want to learn more about

professional medicine and learn how to care for patients with different diseases.

In addition to my familys health, the salary and employment

opportunities are also the main basis for me to choose my major and career. Nursing

is a job without fear of unemployment. This job is prefect for you because you will

have professional knowledge to take care of your family and have a good salary to

ensure your life. my friend said to me. I searched the information about nurses

salary on the internet. A nurses salary is almost $50 dollars per hours. If I could get

such a salary, I could easily pay the monthly bills and buy healthier food for my

family, such as organic vegetables.

Although I want to be a nurse, I ignored the ability to be a nurse. Being a

nurse requires good language skills. In the hospital, I need to patience with patient and

choose different ways of talking with different patients. When people got sick, the

nurse needs to use language skills to get rid of patients fear and let patient cooperate

with a nurse. For example, when my daughter got sick, I took her to the hospital and

she didnt want to get a shot. Mom, I dont want to get a shot. Im scared. You can

play with other kids after you got a shot and I will give you a candy as a reward.

Dont be scared, the injection is not very painful because I will be very gentle. the

nurse said to my daughter. My daughter stopped crying and she trusted the nurse. The

nurse used her language skill to successfully placate my daughter and let my daughter
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cooperate with her. Thus, I believe that the language is a necessary skill for a nurse.

Nurses can build relationships with patients through skillful conversations and get

patients trust.
It is not only the good communication skills that are important to the

nurse, but also critical thinking that is a main skill for nurses. No, I dont like to live

in the hospital. I want to go home, a child yelled to a nurse. Ok, no problem. You

can go home, but I think you want to play with my little rabbit today and maybe you

would like to sleep with her in the hospital. If you sleep with the little rabbit, I think

she will want to stay with you forever, the nurse said as she showed the little toy to

the child. After the child saw the cute toy, she didnt yell anymore. As a result, the

child stayed with the rabbit in the hospital. The nurse solves the problem in a different

way that makes it easier for the patient to accept the nurses advice. Thus, I believe that

the critical thinking is the best way to solve problems and it is useful for nurses.

In conclusion, although I chose nursing for my major that cause by my

family, I cant ignore the skills that a nurse needs. Although nurses have good benefit

and more job opportunities, this career requires good language skills to be competent

for the job. If I want to get this job, I need to learn and improve my language skills

such as oral communication skill and critical thinking skill. Language skills are

important to nurses because nurses can better complete their tasks and give patients

better care. I will try my best to learn how to communicate with different people and

learn how to solve problems with creativity. I wished that I could be one of many

health care workers.

Section 2: Explanation and Description of Discourse Community

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Identifying my major and future career based on certain reasons is the

first step in my study life. In addition to the knowledge that I will learn in school, I

need to know what skills are necessary in this career and how to succeed in this

profession. The skills need for nurses are multifaceted, such as communication skills,

critical thinking skills, and also internal resources. Moreover, I will enter a new

discourse community which is related to my career.

According to John Swales, the discourse community is a group of people

in a region with common goals, a certain degree of relevant content and professional

skills that use interactive mechanisms to provide information and feedback to achieve

their goals. The field that I want to study is nursing and the discourse community of

nursing is closely related to their work. Nurses have common tasks and goals, such as

how to take care of patients, how to better complete tasks in the process of patients

illness. Nurses need to communicate to get important information about their patient.

Meanwhile, a nurse will communicate with other nurses or doctors about what the

nurse knows about the patient.

For better understanding of this major and future career, I arranged an

interview. My interviewee is my friend and her name is Amber. She is studying in the

nursing program. She will graduates and becomes a real nurse a year later. I

interviewed her on October 1 at a restaurant in Alhambra. This interview was

meaningful and rewarding and I have a deeper understanding of the skills of

requirements of the nurse. During the interview, I recorded the main ideas of the

interviewer with written notes.

According to my interviewee, the listening and speaking skills would be
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the most important skills to be a nurse. In general, nurses need to communicate to get

information and relay information to make patients to get the right targeted treatment.

The nurse needs to communicate with patients who have different education, culture,

and background face to face every day. Because the nurse has to get the information

through their narrative. The nurses need to know about the patients history of illness,

the causes of the disease, the symptoms of the disease, and the feeling of the patient.

Meanwhile, the nurse needs to communicate the patients information to the doctors

in a detailed and accurate manner. The doctor will give the patient the correct and

targeted treatment according to the information provided by nurse.

As well as communication skills, internal resource can also help nurses to

work better. The internal resources are the qualities that the nurse has in herself such

as patience, compassion, and courage that make the nurse complete the task better.

Most of the time, when a patient comes to the hospital with pain and trouble, the nurse

needs to be compassion and understand the patient with empathy. While the nurses

understand the patients feeling empathetic, the patients will establish a good

relationship with nurse. In the process of treating patients, nurses need to be very

patient. Patient treatment and understanding of patients are key to successful

treatment. The nurse also needs to be patient to complete each step without any

mistake. In some cases, the nurse should not only be patient, but also have courage.

Sometimes, the patients have extensive trauma that should be a lot of blooding or

massive wounds and the nurses need to have enough courage to deal with these

situations calmly.
In addition to communication and internal resources, the skills to analyze
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and solve problems are used by nurses every day. The nurse needs to analyze the

patients situation and solve various problems in the treatment process. The nurses

daily job is check the patients symptoms and analyze the patients condition. In

special cases, the elderly patient of the disease, the nurse needs to analyze the

condition and the development of the disease is based on the symptoms and medical

history that they can see. In addition to the analysis, the nurse has to deal with various

problems in the treatment process such as drug allergy.

Aside from the work that requires communication, record work is also an

important part of nurses work. Recording the patients information and the process of

treatment is a daily task for the nurse. The patients family can see the details of the

patients treatment according to the recording such as drug use and replacement,

surgical effects and postoperative recovery. Detailed case records are also important

material for hand over the patient. The other nurses or doctor can interpret the

patients situation in detail according to the record. Moreover, the record of the

disease is an important basis for future treatment of new patients. So recording skills

are very important for nurses.

Section 3: reflection
In summary, Language skills are important for my major and career in the

future. Nursing is a job that requires comprehensive abilities. Listening and speaking

skills play a very important role in the process of the nurses work, such as establish

relationship with patients better, get the important information about patients, pacify

the patients emotion, and make patients cooperate with nurses. Analysis and problem-

solving skills are essential skills in a nurses daily work. The nurses will analyze the
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patients development trend through the patients performance or examination data

and find a targeted solution. Witting skills are the basic skills that a nurse has.

Moreover, the internal resources allow nurses to perform tasks better. Through this

study, I have a detailed understanding of the skills of nurses that helps me better to

learn and improve. I will carry out detailed study and practice on these skills and I

hope that I can make full use of these skills in the future.

Works Cited:

Hart

Swales, John

Zhang, Yan ( Amber)