Hardest thing about nursing school?

Nursing Students General Students

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What would you say hands down was or is the toughest thing about nursing school?

Learning how to think like a nurse. I struggle with critical thinking. I know the material well, but on exams it's like I can't fully apply my knowledge. In my program there's four correct answers but you have to pick the BEST answer and I always seem to by pass my gut instinct and miss the question by choosing the 2nd best answer. Practice NCLEX questions and every resource they give you.

I can totally relate and agree!!it really takes time to learn critical thinking! I took nursing as a second course and unlike my first course, answering exams doesn't just take simple memorization, remembering details etc but it is the application of what you have learned!

Makes a lot of sense!

Being nervous at clinical is my biggest challenge so far. I'm going into my last semester soon and I still don't understand why the thought of clinical makes me nervous. I'm always the one who seems to shake a lot and practice seems to be the only way to overcome my anxiety/shaking at clinical.

That there is only 24 hours in a day, and you still need to sleep!

Having to stay up late to do clinical prep, then getting up early for clinical.

Specializes in Hospice + Palliative.

without a doubt, time management and multi-tasking my school, family, personal, and "social" (ha, what social?!) lives. No matter what I'm doing, I always feel like I "should" be doing something else. When I'm working out, I feel like I should be studying. When I'm studying, I feel like I should be playing with my kids. When I'm playing with my kids, I feel like I should be cleaning the house. When I'm cleaning the house, I feel like I should be taking some quiet/relaxing time just for me. When I'm taking time for me.....wait, I never actually do that, lol!!!

in all seriousness - the best advice I can give is to develop a schedule (a detailed, slightly crazy, to-the-minute schedule) for yourself, and then Trust The Schedule. I have a google calendar for each of my family members, plus one for me, then one just for school stuff, a meal planning one, and then a separate one for just my kids' sports activities (4 boys, LOTS of sports, lol!) I can see them all together on my phone or computer, and each person has access to their own google calendar so they can add/edit stuff, which means that even though I am the "master" of the schedule, I'm not solely responsible for maintaining it. I don't know what I'd do if our google calendars ever went away - they, quite literally, run our lives!!!

I think there are two things that are hard, one to learn at the beginning and one that comes on as you progress through the semesters.

The thing you need to learn really, really fast is that everything you learn is something you will need later. It's not like, oh, American History where you memorize the battles and the names and dates, take the final, and you're done with it. In your prerequisites and your fundamental classes you will learn things you will absolutely need to know next semester, and the semester after that, and the next, and for NCLEX, and for the professional work you seek. Be sure that you truly and throughly understand the "why" of everything, because that's the best way to plug it into what comes next.

The next thing is radically different from anything you ever learned before, the "critical thinking," "thinking like a nurse" part. I've been giving a lot of thought to this lately because so many students struggle with it, trying to figure out why this is so hard for them. I've come to the conclusion that in today's short-education world, most students don't get what we got, which was a whole semester course on nursing theories. Do not roll your eyes at me, young man/lady :) -- if a profession doesn't know where it came from, it has a poor chance of knowing where it's going.

If you have the time to study how nursing today came to be what it is, you will have a much better sense of where you will fit in. Hearing how other nurses who came before us, amazing people like Roy, Peplau, Rogers, Johnson, Orem, and yes, Nightingale and many others thought about what they were doing gives you what they call in the ed biz a conceptual framework to hang your own thoughts on. Pick the one that resonates best with you, and revisit the list now and then to see if it still works for you or something else fits your thinking better. (Nursing Theorists)

The next best thing you can do is be sure to get your NANDA-I 2012-2014 right now, even as a brand new nurse, and put it on your bedside table and read a few pages every night. Really. I mean it. Free 2-day shipping for students at Amazon and you will be sooo far ahead on making nursing plans of care... which depend on, more than anything else, thinking like a nurse.

Now, I know that you have a lot to learn, you are blown away, it is and will be like nothing else you ever studied before, and this sounds like asking too much. But you asked what would be the best way to acquire this sort of irreplaceable, essential knowledge, and this, in my opinion is it.

Welcome to the profession. We need you out here. And we need you strong, educated, and ready.

without a doubt, time management and multi-tasking my school, family, personal, and "social" (ha, what social?!) lives. No matter what I'm doing, I always feel like I "should" be doing something else. When I'm working out, I feel like I should be studying. When I'm studying, I feel like I should be playing with my kids. When I'm playing with my kids, I feel like I should be cleaning the house. When I'm cleaning the house, I feel like I should be taking some quiet/relaxing time just for me. When I'm taking time for me.....wait, I never actually do that, lol!!!

in all seriousness - the best advice I can give is to develop a schedule (a detailed, slightly crazy, to-the-minute schedule) for yourself, and then Trust The Schedule. I have a google calendar for each of my family members, plus one for me, then one just for school stuff, a meal planning one, and then a separate one for just my kids' sports activities (4 boys, LOTS of sports, lol!) I can see them all together on my phone or computer, and each person has access to their own google calendar so they can add/edit stuff, which means that even though I am the "master" of the schedule, I'm not solely responsible for maintaining it. I don't know what I'd do if our google calendars ever went away - they, quite literally, run our lives!!!

You are awesome and honest! I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing this! That first part is how I feel and I've yet to even start. Lol!

It'll get better and you'll be finished in no time!

God bless you! All of you!!

Time management was the hardest for me. I procrastinated big time last semester and would wait the night before the test to study 4 chapters. I ended up with B's in all of my classes luckily. I'm a mom and wife so I still have household duties to take care. My husband was a huge support system and helped around the house.

I've learned a few things since last semester. This is my game plan. I've set up my calender in google. I added all my classes, the times, and also what I will be doing in each class. I have it color coded for each class. On a day I have a test I marked it RED so that I can easily spot test days. I've blocked off times for sleep. This helps me visualize my entire day. I plan to read the chapter before class (I never did that last semester) and make out flashcards. I'm a visual learner, so writing things out for me works best. I use the neon index cards and use colored pens. If all goes as planned I should have all my notecards made out before the test and I can just review those. My problem last semester is that I was waiting until the night before the test to make out notecards... that was just a waste of time for me. I wasn't using my time efficiently.

I never studied on the weekends... I now plan to at least spend a small amount of time going over each course, at least review something. Also when I would get home from school I would come home and eat something... do something for you for an hour or so. Watch a show that you love. You can't devote every single minute to nursing school. You will lose your sanity. Take breaks in between studying and don't stay up too late studying. I literally felt during finals week that my brain was done retaining anything. For me if I were studying at night and was getting sleepy or frustrated I would go to sleep. I never stayed up past 11. Get up in the morning an hour early and review.

This semester I also plan to buy the Saunders Nclex PN review book and do NCLEX questions pertaining to what we are learning. I have Med Surg this semester too so I plan to buy the "Med Surg Success" book.

This is what i've learned. It's simply just my experience. :)

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without a doubt, time management and multi-tasking my school, family, personal, and "social" (ha, what social?!) lives. No matter what I'm doing, I always feel like I "should" be doing something else. When I'm working out, I feel like I should be studying. When I'm studying, I feel like I should be playing with my kids. When I'm playing with my kids, I feel like I should be cleaning the house. When I'm cleaning the house, I feel like I should be taking some quiet/relaxing time just for me. When I'm taking time for me.....wait, I never actually do that, lol!!!

in all seriousness - the best advice I can give is to develop a schedule (a detailed, slightly crazy, to-the-minute schedule) for yourself, and then Trust The Schedule. I have a google calendar for each of my family members, plus one for me, then one just for school stuff, a meal planning one, and then a separate one for just my kids' sports activities (4 boys, LOTS of sports, lol!) I can see them all together on my phone or computer, and each person has access to their own google calendar so they can add/edit stuff, which means that even though I am the "master" of the schedule, I'm not solely responsible for maintaining it. I don't know what I'd do if our google calendars ever went away - they, quite literally, run our lives!!!

I just made a schedule like that today. My hubby said I had OCD... lol I feel like Nursing and OCD go hand in hand :) But i'm super pumped about my color coded schedule.

When I graduated a couple of years ago, I realized the hardest thing in school is dealing with fellow students' BS. It can be a lot of petty whining, complaining, rumor starting...crap. There can be jealousy, envy, hatred, when someone succeeds and the majority fails.

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