I found out about the course from a college friend, and also one of my parent's friends got some research from the Liverpool Echo paper and they kept that research for me. And through that, I found out some of my own research and then applied for an interview, which was successful. Then I gained a place at St. Helens College on the course.

Part of the course is obviously theory based and you go on 12 week rotation placements ... and these could be in the community or hospital based. I've had both community and hospital placements. Some of the procedures I've done are TPR checks and blood pressure checks and you gain a lot of confidence with interaction through the patients. It's just basically roles you can do before you go onto John Moore's University and obviously gain more practice.

Each placement you have, you have a mentor which, if you've got any problems with sickness or absences, you can ring up and talk through any issues you've got. You've also got college mentors for college work, for any assignments. You've got an NVQ Assessor who comes out to placements and assesses you, which all goes towards your NVQ Level 3. And, you've got coordinators who arrange placements so that you get a good rotation of different placements in the community and the hospitals.

I'm going to go onto John Moore's University, which I've just been accepted a place for the September intake. The course guarantees an interview with both Edgehill and John Moore's, depending on how successful you are.

The biggest advantage for me is to gain confidence because, at first, I was unsure about going into nursing because I didn't think I'd be very good with patients ... because of maybe interaction skills and I just wasn't confident enough. But I really think after two years of moving around it's really made a difference working with both patients and staff. And, it's also helped me on the rotation of placements to find out which area I'd like to go into, whether it is pediatrics or adult nursing.

The Key Skill I'm doing at St. Helens College is Numeracy. This has helped me on placements, such as measuring syringes for any medicines that I've been doing. You have to do weighing with scales, TPR checks and blood pressure where you have to record them on graphs in the patient documentation. And it's just helped me in that way to also give me the confidence that I know that I'm doing it right.