I think this topic has been discussed ad nauseum but I went into this first semester thinking the horror stories were meritless and the result of lazy students, but that could not be more incorrect.
I am just about to finish my first week of the first semester in my nursing career, and I seriously have a headache from all the reading I've been doing. Today, I had my first post-lab quiz and I made a 60%, where 74.9% is required to be passing. Only 1 person out of 8 in my lab group passed. We all have individual appointments with our instructor to do it again. Our first grade stands, but we must pass it to continue on with lab.
I will be the first to admit that it is MY fault I didn't pass. I didn't do all the required readings, and the ones I did do were not thorough enough. I thought I could just look over the skill procedures for sterile technique and pass the 20 question quiz. WRONG! It doesn't help that my instructor spends the 3 hour lab session talking about her experiences as a nurse and allowing small talk between the students. I think that might have to do with our small clinical group size of 8 people. She doesn't lecture over the procedures or material, which.. let me reiterate, DOES NOT JUSTIFY MY FAILURE. It just highlights that as nursing students, we have to carry our own weight. We must be prepared to teach ourselves anything and everything.
This post isn't meant to scare or discourage anyone. Just know that the stories by other members saying how real and scary nursing school can be have validity to them. No, it isn't ENTIRELY life consuming, as I am here writing this topic. Breaks are actually needed lest you stop absorbing information from reading. But serious discipline has to be developed to sit down and read chapters at a time, and FAST. These reading assignments pile up and they do not stop.
Be prepared to tell friends NO, that you cannot hang out. This semester is the first one in forever that I won't have class or work on the weekends, but it doesn't matter. My free Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are not really 'free'. They will be spent strategically reading and studying for the ever looming tests and quizzes. From the moment I wake up, to the moment I sleep, I am constantly studying. If I'm not, I am thinking about how I should be studying. I can't afford to make time for anything but eating, showering, and going to the gym.. and that's only because I need a stress reliever of some sort.
Thanks for reading my rant and I hope it helped someone. Please refrain from comments like "Did you think nursing school was going to be easy?", "Duh. It's nursing school." because no, I did not think nursing school would be easy. I knew it would be difficult. But no one can know what it is like until they are actually experiencing it, and more students to be need to know that.