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Background: Although the COVID-19 pandemic's impact on students has already been studied, its impact on nursing students' perception of their training and their conception of their future profession is unknown., Aims: To describe nursing students' perception of their involvement in reinforcement during the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of working as reinforcement staff during the COVID-19 pandemic on nursing students., Design: Cross-sectional, comparative case/non-case study., Setting: nurse training institutions in France., Participants: "Cases" defined as nursing students who worked as reinforcement staff during the COVID-19 pandemic; "non-cases" defined as people who were in final year of nursing studies in 2018-2019 or 2019-2020 and so did not work as reinforcement staff during their nursing studies., Methods: questionnaire about representations of the nursing profession, role of the nurse in society, previous thinking of dropping out of nursing education., Results: 534 subjects included (310 cases; 214 non-cases). Cases reported feeling useful (38.6%) or very useful (25.7%) as reinforcement workers, while 91.5% concurred that nurses had an important role in the management of COVID-19 patients. Cases more frequently reported that the nursing profession is one where you save lives (61.5% vs 52.5%, p = 0.05). The desire to work as a nurse for a whole life had been more frequently expressed by cases (45.3% vs 34.8%, p = 0.05). Nursing education drop-out has been considered by 63.4% of subjects, without difference between "cases" and "non-cases" (p = 0.63). Subjects who considered dropping out of nursing education were younger (p = 0.01) and less often prone to think that the nursing profession was a profession personally rewarding (p = 0.01) and a life-saving profession (p = 0.03)., Conclusion: The majority of nursing students reported feeling useful during the pandemic, and underlined the importance of the nurse's role in management of COVID-19 patients. Participation in reinforcement staff during the pandemic had no influence on dropping out of nursing education., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Author(s).)