studying .. what do you think?

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ok finals week! finally yay! im in my first semester of nursing school which i definitely think is the worst so far only because you need to get in the mind set to study more often and to prioritize your schedule etc and i do think you still need to maintain a life in school

but i was curious about everyones study habits? i normally study between 2-4 hrs a day depending on what it is i have to get done .. class work, clinicals, lab work etc .. sometimes less sometimes maybe more you get the picture and ofcourse with sufficient beraks in between. :)

but i am always one to think that you need to still maintain somesort of life to have sanity .. being with one without children, single, living on my own .. i have no distractions when it comes to studying or any other obligations i guess you can say.

but this past saturday i did most of my studying during the day and had a xmas party to attend to at night. i like studying for only a few hrs to give my brain time to put the thought into order and actually "sleeping on it" if that makes sense. but my classmate was shocked that i went to this xmas party and wasnt at homes tudying all night. she then preceded to tell me that she spends 7-10 hrs a day studying on sat and the same amt on sunday.

anyway my rationale for this? i dont think that studying that length of time could be effective bc you are not giving your brain the rest it needs to actually absorb all of this information that we are now learning and acquiring. but i could be wrong .. what do you think?

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Specializes in New Critical care NP, Critical care, Med-surg, LTC.

Do what works for you, let other people worry about themselves. I've never studied every day, I've studied about 5 hours total for my final tomorrow. Have I got an A? Nope. But I'm satisfied with what I get out for what I put in.

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yes i definitely agree your right. cant get hung up on the small stuff .. and im sure youll do just fine :)

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Ill tell you what, I spent my entire weekend studying for the final exam today and it did me almost no good. Something very peculiar happened and we were told that we would be allowed to bring a notecard in with us. Unbelievable right? Well, I had the entire thing filled in front and back with tiny print and it didnt help me at all. I knew most of the info I already had on it but we were not tested on cold hard facts. We had random questions thrown at us that we never would have thought of and sometimes did not even know the answers to. There was almost no way to prepare for this exam and I am sure that not everyone passed and will be continuing on in the program next month.:(

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Some people study a ridiculous amount of hours, while others dont. Im one of those people who only study about 5 hours a week. I dont have an A, but I've never gotten less than a B in any of my nursing courses.

Didnt study at all for my Med-Surg II final last week and still managed to get an 84 on it. Another girl said she studied for 50 hours, but still didnt pass.

Everybodys different.

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Specializes in Too Early.

I don't study--I drink--it helps with the Critical Thinking questions. :rotfl:

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Do what works for you, it's the only way to get through school..Being that you're in your first semester, I think you'll eventually see that you change as well. It's fundamentals, right now it's memorizing and regurgitating. For some people they don't need to study at all just sit through class and they absorb it. Others spend hours on end reading, reading, reading to absorb the same material.

I am one of those that absorbs information when I hear it. If I look at it I remember it, the whole "photographic memory" bit. I was a few semesters in, hardly studied at all and pulling in A's like it was my job... After pharmacology we actually started the "real nursing classes". I did a quick turn around. First test was a looooow B. Turns out memorizing doesn't work in real nursing. Once you have to start applying the knowledge you actually have to start studying to put all the pieces together so that you CAN apply the knowledge.

Now I'm going into my last semester, thank god. And I went from not studying at all in the beginning..... to spending around 20 hours studying for the test I took today (comprehensive Adult Med Surg) I watched my wife go to dinner, I watched my wife leave to go christmas shopping, I had my sister stop over with my cute-as-can-be 2 year old niece (who I completely ignored). All because I HAD to study...

Moral of the story: do what works for you, when it works for you.... Don't let others sway you from what is working, just like you shouldn't try to sway them to change how they operate.

But ONE piece of advice, don't just learn things to pass the next test! This will come back to bite you. Every nursing class moving forward builds upon the information you have learned in your previous classes. If you learn it and forget it, you will have big chunks of information missing. You have to learn it to remember it so that in the end all of the pieces will fit together. There truly is a point when you get that "AHA!" feeling and things begin to make sense, but you have to have all of the pieces to get there.

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