How to survive first year nursing

[annieelu]

I'm doing a BScN, which is a 4 year degree to become an RN. So I'm a first year uni student and ever since I started school I was shocked at how much information I needed to know, its basically like crammed. We use powerpoint during lectures and there about anywhere from 60-70 slides for anatomy, 50-70 slides for microbiology, and 80-150 slides for physiology for every unit in one of those courses and onto of that lots of reading to do in the textbooks. Those are the nursing classes I'm required to take. I also have to take a regular english class, and interdisplicinary development, and I'm also taking psychology as my elective and that doesn't even compare to as many slides as my nursing classes its around 20-30 slides for one unit. I have some friends who are doing an arts degrees and when they see how much material I need to know on the slides just scares them. I've fallen behind a lot. usually when I come home from school, I would rewrite my notes and study the lecture, but one unit would usually take me about 5-6 hours to finish and I would not have time review all my other subjects. I also made a bad choice to switch out of my physiology class from the 3:30pm to 4:50pm lecture to the 2:00pm to 3:20pm lecture since the prof is better and I can get home earlier. All I ever do is study now, I study the whole day from when I wake up until I sleep, literally. My friends are like me they study basically the whole day as well. I'm sleep deprived as I only get about 5 hours of sleep a day, and I have class from 9:30am to 3:20pm on tuesdays ad thursdays, 10am to 3:50pm on wednesdays and 10am to 1pm. It takes me about an hour and 10 minutes to get home since I live on the north side of the city and my university of on the south side of the city. So what I would like is for some of you to give me tips on how to survive, and how to study effectively and get A's, how you managed to study everything and had enough time, how you read completely all the textbook material, and maybe how you survived your first year nursing.

[oceanblue52]

I used to condense the power point slides by writing out the key info and stuff that I didn't know well. This translated for me into about 5-6 pages of notes per unit. just reading the power points is not very effective for learning, you want to figure out how to engage with the material. Testing yourself with book questions is effective too. Work hard on these foundation classes and it will pay off later when you get more specialized. Good luck!

[BrendanO, MSN, RN]

Yup, university-level classes are much harder than most high schools!

Are the PowerPoint slide sets covering material that is not in your book? In all of my classes, the ppts were 90% material from the book, so there was no need to study them separately, except to find the extra 10% content. Are you reading all of the chapters from your textbooks before you go to lecture? The classroom should not be the first time you encounter the material.

Honestly, your workload doesn't sound that extreme, based on the number of classes you're taking (I count six). Why are you taking so many? How many semester-hours of credit are you earning? 12-14 is "normal" at most schools, FYI. Your classroom contact time seems manageable, I count 21 hours/week, especially if that includes your labs. The general guideline I've seen is to double the classroom contact hours to estimate expected outside work time, so that would be 63 hours/week total (21 in class, 42 studying), or 9 hours a day.

You have 2.5 hours/day in transit. Can you use that as study time (on public transport), or are you driving? If you're driving, you could try using a text-to-speech program to have the ppt slides read to you, or you could download A&P or Microbio lectures from youtube or kahn and listen to them while you're driving.

Have you made a 4-year plan of the courses you be taking? Is your current work load (based on semester-hours) going to be typical of every semester? If so, you might want to find a way to get ahead on readings/lectures during breaks or over the summer. Some schools have summer sessions, when you could take your gen eds or electives, so you can concentrate on the core courses during the fall/spring terms.

[annieelu]

I'm required to take the 3 foundation courses first which is microbiology, physiology, anatomy, and I have to take one english course, and one elective (which is psychology), and I have to take the interdisciplinary course which is a class that teaches about how health professionals work together. Thats why I'm taking so many classes. In total my credits I have for this semester is 18. I take the train to school and I sometimes study on there. My main problem is time. I usually only can study one unit for one subject when I get home from school for most of the week or I would be up all night. I sleep around 12-1. Also, do you recommend reading the textbook? I do, and I always write notes, but it seems as if most of the stuff in the textbook is already on the powerpoints.

[BrendanO, MSN, RN]

Regarding textbook vs. ppt content, that's likely going to vary from one professor/class to another, and will be reflected in what you are tested on. My Microbio teacher expected us to know all the content in the textbook, whether he covered it in class or not, and he also covered a lot in class that was not in the book. In my A&P 1 class, the professor only tested us on content we saw in lecture. It's something I think you'll need to work out on a case-by-case basis. However, do consider that you are now taking foundational classes, and your success in future courses will depend on your understanding and recall of the information you're learning.

Taking 18 credits in one semester is a heavy load, so your struggles are for a good reason. A typical BA/BS has 14-16 sem-hours as an "on-track" four-year graduation pace, so you're doing 15-30% more than your non-nursing peers (and 50% more than students doing the minimum 12). Given the load you're taking, it sounds like you're doing great! I would be really surprised if you have to keep that up for 7 more semesters, as that would be a 144-credit degree, which is way beyond even engineering programs. You might want to sit down with an advisor in the nursing program to plan out your future semesters. See if you have any options for taking gen ed requirements (like English or the electives) in the summer, maybe? Then you can concentrate on the core nursing classes in the fall/spring semesters (and get more sleep).