My NCLEX RN Journey....Finally made it!!!

Hello All,

I've been waiting for this day, when I will finally be sharing my success story on this site. and this day has come. Yes my time has finally come. I can now refer to myself as an official US RN!!! Yes I am... God is good...

Over the years, since 2011, cuz that's when I joined this website, I've been reading stories of success and failures and they have helped me a lot, by serving as a source of inspiration to me. Thanks to all.nurses.com....

First of all before I begin, I would like to tell you all that I owe my succces to 1. GOD-He is faithful and will never let you down. Put your trust in him and pray and he will work it all out for you at his own time.

2. Preserverance-Never give up!!! Keep on trying...

I am a foreign educated nurse with a bachelor's degree. I graduated from nursing school in 2005, in my home country, worked for 4 years and then immigrated to the United States in 2009. While completing the process of application for nursing licensure, I worked in other areas of healthcare, to keep up my experience and skills. Finally in 2011, I was approved to sit the NCLEX. I took three months off and studied my head off. I remember, it was summer of 2011 and I excluded myself from all activities with my family and studied profusely. I was an A student in nursing school, but I will admit, as I began preparing for the NCLEX, I realized that I needed to build up my med surg content level, cuz I had been out of school for a long time.

The first mistake I made was to sign up for kaplan classroom review. As I have read on this site, a lot of people have said that kaplan has worked for them, but for me it's a no no!! Especially if you need to build up your content level. Kaplan is basiclly a strategy course that teaches you the techniques of narrowing down your answers, it will not help you with content. And one advice I will give to all you test takers out there, if you want to pass the NCLEX, you have to know your medsurg content to your finger tips, which will give you a better understanding of what you are being asked on the exam. If you are great with content, then kaplan is a good choice, cuz it will help with the strategies, but never rely on kaplan alone.

Secondly, I studied from med surg books I bought..bulky, bulky bulky. I used the NCLEX 3500 (2009 CD), I bought the PDA book 3 weeks before my exam and answerd all the question from back to front, reading all rationales as well. With all this, I still felt unprepared but I had already scheduled my test and after studying for 3 months, I didn't think I would have ever felt more prepared. My first attempt was in the fall of 2011. I said a little prayer and went to take the exam. The computer shut down at 75, went home did the pvt and went straight to the cc page. I knew I failed..I felt soooooo frustrated and cried my head off.. During the entire exam, I saw questions on topics that I had no idea about....mymajor problem was..POOR POOR Content...Well with words of encouragement from my family, I went through my period of grieving, went back to my old job and began preparing again to retest.

This time around I procrastinated scheduling my exam, I give myself another year to prepare. I did exam cram (Book back to front), NCSBN 3 weeks couse (I must admit this was a little bit helpful, I highly reccommmend it as a support preparation material), NCSBN improved my med surg content as well as my knowledge on common drugs seen on the NCLEX. They have an app in the iphone app store, you can download it and trust me, it's very helpful. Well anyways, after a year and all this preparation, went back for a second attempt in the fall of 2012, test shut of at 115...walked away from the hall not knowing my fate, but felt I did far better then my first attempt. I was familiar with a lot of stuff that I was tested on and felt my med surg content as well as knowledge on pharmacology had greatly improved. Got home did the pvt trick and again straight to the cc page....well wasn't as disapppointed as the first time. I knew I needed to study a little more. Got my failure reults in the mail and saw that I was above passing level in pharmacology and near passing level in most of the other areas. This made me even stronger and I said to myself, I will not give up..I can Pass this exam. God has brought me this far and he will not let me down..

While all this was going on, there were other positive things happening in life, I got married to the man of dreams and realized i was expecting a baby right after..I embraced this new blessing God had bestowed upon me and begin preparing again for my exam..I will admit my husband has been a great source of support to me in preparing for this exam, we have prayed together and he has always given me words of encouragent..Ok long story short..lol...

Third time around, final and sucessful attempt. I studied for about 4 months..This time I did the all famous HURST REVIEW!!!..GUYS I WILL SHOUT THIS OUT LOUD TO YOU..HURST IS THE ANSWER!!! IT IS THE BEEESSSTTT!!LOL.. If you have very poor content, it builds you up and not with bulky bulky medsurg content, but just what you need to know for the exam. In addition to hurst, I again did NSCBN 3 weeks course for build up in areas that I realized I was still lacking and reviewed their drugs app. This was all I did for the third attempt. Scheduled my exam at 8am on a saturday morning. Said a little prayer and began...I got a lot of high level questions..tons of SATA and management of care, who will you see first questions...some pharmacology, all of which I will say I was familiar with..haha surprisingly...well test shut of at 95...left the testing center not knowing my fate, but I kept telling myself..whatever it is..I'll acccept the result..got home did the PVT..and BAAAAAMMMM!!! there it was the good pop up.....hahahaha...i jumped on my husband and was like..i paaassseddd babeee..muah muah..and I did the monkey dance..I could feel my baby inside me dancing for joy......hehe...had to wait two days for the quick results to confirm and definitely I passed..two days later my name was up on the BON website..Awwweeeeee.... So that's my story folks out there preparing for this nerve wrecking exam..

To those of you have passed..I say congrats on the job well done.. For those of you who are still trying and preparing to take this exam.. Keep your heads up..Never give up...Keep saying to yourself..I can do this!! and Pray Pray Pray.....it's the key...God Bless....