Due to the demand for nurses, students from three different generations could be present in any nursing class. The youngest of the four are members of "Generation Y," which is comprised of people born between the years 1980 and 1994. Students born between the years 1965 and 1980 are considered to be part of Generation X. The Baby Boomer generation are students born between 1945 and 1964.
Older nursing students are often more focused than their younger counterparts. Older students can be less distracted and more mature. Many older students are spending their own money to attend college and not that of their parents. Parents often pay for the education of children fresh out of high school. This most likely is not the case with an older adult and as a result, they take the schooling process more seriously, as it is looked at as an investment.
"Older nurses, sometimes they eat their young," said Kelli Mayo, a registered nurse in the labor and delivery unit at a South Carolina hospital. Older nurses who have worked in the field for many years can have problems with the way younger nurses with less experience carry out their jobs. "They are from the old school and they want things to stay that way," Mayo said.
Relations have become so strained in some hospitals and medical facilities that classes on lateral violence, also known as workplace bullying, are now mandatory for employees. There have been cases of nurses sabotaging their coworkers by not sharing vital patient information with other nurses.
Because of the nature of the nursing profession, nursing students of all ages are usually highly competitive and do their best to excel in their schooling.
It is not uncommon for nursing students to ask one another what grade they earned on an examination. This is often a method of comparing themselves to one another, searching for indicators to who will make the best nurse.
Nursing students of all ages understand that they are in a life-saving profession and so therefore must be knowledgeable and do their best at all times. This competition often becomes a competition between older and younger nursing students. The older students want to compete with their younger counterparts to prove they are not too old to be there.