Purpose: The purpose of this research is to assess the communication experiences of nursing students by conducting a simulation using standardized patients and to understand their essential meaning in-depth.Methods: This research was conducted from May to June 2022 and targeted 17 third-year nursing students who were attending K University in Kangwon-do and underwent mental health nursing simulation. In-depth interview was conducted by organizing a focus group, and this the outcomes were analyzed by Colaizzi’s phenomenological method.Results: The communication experiences were derived in four categories, namely, ‘Preoccupation in the situation like it’s real’, ‘Embarrassed by unpredictable communication situation’, ‘Self-reflection on communication’ and ‘The effort to improve communication skills’.Conclusion: Based on the results of this research, there is a need to conduct well-designed scenarios and modules, and to provide pre-training so that standardized patients can provide various communication responses. Moreover, it is necessary to provide opportunities for nursing students to acquire nursing ability on their own.