STCC Nursing Fall 2009

Everyone is different, I know for me I went into September with a plan in mind based on how I got A's in all of my pre req classes. In A&P I always did all of the reading, found it very helpful. In nursing, the exams that I got A's on, I studied the lecture notes, skimmed the reading only for clarification purposes, and did NCLEX review questions. In fact, the one exam that I did all of the readings and assigned stuff was my worst! BUt everyone is different. I have two friends who got A's both semesters and one did all the reading and the other never opened a text book once (just studied lecture notes and NCLEX books) I find that the nursing exams are different because unlike A&P you need to choose the best answer by critically thinking, whereas in A&P there was only one right answer. Long story short, It is a great idea to plan to be organized but try not to worry about it too much now, enjoy your summer! You will most likely be able to find out what works for you pretty early on as far as what to read, study, etc.

I wasn't organized at all before Nursing school. But now I'm pretty surprised at how that's changed, I even have to do lists. I never thought I would go that far, but I can really appreciate anyone being super organized now. One thing that I've seen that is an amazingly good idea is sticky tab marking your lab diagnostic book for clinical. It's a pain to refer to the index for every single lab done on a patient every single week. Which was why I decided to get one for my PDA the second semester around. Never thought about sticky tab marking a book, yet I did it for my powerpoint handouts the first semester by topic!

The first few weeks she had us write them all out.

Great idea with the post-its!!

My instructor said we couldn't cut and paste either. She wanted it to be written in our own words in a way we could remember. Like if the med was for Blood pressure we had to write "Lowers BP by vasodilation versus the more complicated and technical way it is n the book.

Hmm, I guess I sort of lucked out on that end for clinical with being able to still copy/paste. I pretty much always used my own words for what the drug was for, what I copy/pasted was for nursing implications and the template I made for lab diagnostics (changing it a little bit each week to be specific to my patient). I figured I'd probably see an end to copy/pasting at some point.

You're typically assigned patients in your first year. You will most likely be collecting data from charts on your patient the first day, and the second being actual patient care.

As for shoes, they should be all white. No shoes that have no backing like crocs.

What is the term paper about? Do we get to pick our own topic?

In 102, they tell you what has to be included in the paper but you can pick your topic as long as it fits the criteria...and you have to post your topic with your reader and get it approved...In 202 you have to pick from a list of topics. Anyone remember what the topic was, I forgot? I know the STCC APA manual has it in it, one edition has the 102 paper and the other has the 202 paper i just cant remember which is which (4th or 5th edition)

I believe the topic was health promotion using the nursing processes the first semester for us? We were able to choose what we wanted to promote, I went for diet in vegetarian pregnant women (I forgot my offical title lol). For the second semester, we had scenerios in which we had to choose from. In those scenerios the patients were dealing with some disease process in which we had to write about.