For a new student nurse, mention of your finals, as in, exams - seems a world-away. After a paroxysmal attack of fear (and motivation!), time resolves. "It's fine. I can relax. We're good!"
Especially so in the pre-Project 2000 days (Swaby, 2021), when nurse education was conducted in more local schools of nursing. You could be forgiven for feeling reassured that there's plenty of time; if your first step was to work as a nursing assistant (or cadet) prior to starting as a student.
Then all of a sudden, you can point to many wornout shoes. You've been busy; helped run a ward, a caseload, a team, and raised a family. And, while the NHS, nursing, society, and much else besides have continued their relentless pace of change, change and more change.
You blink,* look again and you're starting what will be your final 3-year period of nurse registration. What this will bring: who knows?
Kelly Swaby (2021) Did Project 2000 fulfil the intention set out by nursing’s leadership to create
a profession of highly educated practitioners. Thesis.
https://pure.hud.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/70492399/Swaby_THESIS.pdf
*'Blink' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f0p5KqdU9U