I've always heard Nursing students complaining and losing sleep.What makes it so difficult? Is it the work load? Clinicals? I have a 7 month old and will be returning to school when she's 1 and a half yrs old.I graduated with my Associates degree in Liberal Arts last year so I have most of the liberal arts courses completed.I plan on apply to a ADN program.I took a look at the outlined courses at the school im interested in and it seems like I will only need to take a Nursing course and maybe one Liberal Arts course every semester.Will that make things easier for me? Plus I can chose to go just once a week for the whole day.I will not be working.What do you think?

Check out posts on the student nurse forum for more info about school.

Not sure what your school is like, but when I first thought about going to NS, I didn't know that I didn't have a choice about how many courses I could take at a time. Your schedule is predetermined. You *will* (if FCCJ) take 4 classes (12 CR) 1st term. For me, eve/weekends, 4 nights per week 6 - 9, friday eve @ hospital getting patient info before going home and spending hours developing a care plan...up at the hospital saturday morn @ 0630 and there until 2PM.

Determining whether or not it is "hard" depends upon your personal gifts and abilities and your workload. Right now my youngest is 16. I work FT with OT/oncall AND do NS!

is nursing school hard ??

ha, ha, ha, ha..........oh yeah baby......it's hard indeed !!

praiser :heartbeat

I didn't think it was particularly difficult, but it was EXTREMELY time consuming to do everything and learn what I needed to learn....

Oh, Honey! If you want easy, stick with Liberal Arts! Nursing school is hard! Nursing is harder!

Yes, it's VERY hard.

I did it as a 33 year old single mother doing a career change.

Now, I'm 35 and just recently passed NCLEX and will start my new job in a MICU on Monday.

Hard? That's an UNDERSTATEMENT!

oh yeah

It is a large workload, the difficult part (as already stated) is that you have a predetermined school schedule. The classes and clinicals will take up much of your time, not to mention the huge amount of reading. The first semester was about 18 hours of lecture/clinical with 100-200 pages of reading a week. By fourth (last) semester I had 30 hours class/clinic with 300 or so pages a week. I also took non nursing classes at the same time and worked 35 hours a week the entire time. Last semester was over 40 hours a week of class, plus 35 hours at work and 15-20 of studying.

Time management and discipline are really the keys to success in nursing school. Plus, you really need to know yourself: know what type of studying works best for you (i.e., huge waste of time for me to make flashcards, but some students really love them), know when you really need to take a break and head to the movies. You will have to set aside most of your social life too, by the way!

No offense to your previous college courses, but your liberal arts courses are absolutely no comparison. I already had a BA in Psychology, and even my upper level courses seemed like cake once I started NS. So, yes NS is difficult. You will have lots of stress and gray hairs. Make sure you want to be a nurse for the right reasons. I know many people (myself included) that jumped into it because of the 'shortage' thinking there would be opportunities galore and ironclad job security.

Here I am now studying for the NCLEX and job-hunting like a madwoman! Don't get me wrong, there are many great reasons to be a nurse, just be sure it is really the right path for you.

Yes. Nursing school is hard. And time consuming. Being a nurse is even harder.

I'm doing an online program, with a clinical once a week, but all else online. I'm an LPN doing my ADN, so a bit of difference there, but not much. I think the nursing school experience is about as varied and unique to the individual as the practice of nursing is. I am starting my 2nd semester of a regular ADN program, and don't think it's that hard. I do study a lot, but work full-time, and am a master (haha!) at managing my time. I actually schedule my free time, too, as very important to me to have balance....habits start now, and I don't want to fall into habit of not taking care of myself. I've seen it happen to nursing students..overstudying, low grades..sign something "off", and doesn't seem to matter whether have children, jobs, or not.....very personal thing.

I just graduated and passed NCLEX. It was the HARDEST thing I have ever undertaken. I have been an honor student my entire life so I was used to working and studying and giving it my all. If you can pass nursing school, you can do anything in my book.

One of my first clinical instructors told us that medical school, law school, and nursing school were the TOUGHEST schools out there. If you can get through any of these, then you have achieved a great accomplishment.

BE PREPARED TO STUDY ALL THE TIME AND DEDICATE YOUR LIFE TO IT!!

Best regards! Epona, RN

Yes it is hard. Especially if you want to go onto a masters and have to get As and Bs. I literally had no life while in nursing school; even on my "school breaks" I gave up my time to extra curricular clinical time/precepting. It all paid of though as I have a nursing job in the department of my choice while there are some that have been out of school for a year and still do not have a job.

Studying for a nursing class is much harder than most other courses. I never studied for a non-nursing class as much as I did for my nursing courses. The amount of work; papers, clinical write-ups, projects, ect are astronomical in comparison to other degrees as well. Most courses are only 3 units while most nursing courses are 6 or more units. Plus, not only do you have your regular class time you have 12 or more hours in the hospital/clinical.

An instructor told me once that Nursing and Engineering are the two hardest degrees to get at the University I graduated from.