Were you "SMART" before Nursing School?! - Page 3

graduated from high school with about a c+ average...and 750 math and verbal sats
graduated from bsn with about a 2.85 average (which would have been better if i wasn't working
24 hours per week, and every holiday, and every weekend)....and 750 gsats
graduated from mn with a 2.95 (which would have been better if i had had the presence of mind to drop a course i was failing...because i was sooooo sleep deprived with a baby:zzzzz...so i didn't even remember to drop it ::sigh::..if not for that, i'd have made the national honor society)... and an award for research and two babies

High School 95%
LPN 88%
ASN 3.63
BSN 3.79

My LPN program I find was the hardest thing I ever did. Study all the time.

High School 95%<br>LPN 88%<br>ASN 3.63<br>BSN &nbsp;3.79<br><br>My LPN program I find was the hardest thing I ever did. Study all the time.

High School: 3.5, Community College (Prereq's): 3.9, B.A. Psych: 3.8, BSN: 3.7s. I study a lot and gave up my procrastination, but it's more busy work and deadlines that get in the way of my social life more than anything else. I work part-time and would consider myself a self-proclaimed nerd and have a sincere passion for the medical field!!! I think students that make it far enough in this program goes hand-in-hand with a high GPA and inate intelligence and/or study our rear ends off to get through. My husband is more intelligent than me, but wouldn't have the drive to make it through a BSN program! I'm not saying it's HARD per se, but it's a lot of work and dedication!

Most people are smart enough if they are willing to put in the work. A highschool student with B's and C's could do it. Pre-nursing my gpa was 1.0, lol. I was partying and forgot to withdraw from my classes. I had to work VERY hard with all the pre reqs to get that gpa up so they would accept me, and nursing classes have been nothing but A's. As far as studying habits chnaging- I am finding it harder and harder to push myself to study, because I am just so tired of studying so hard so often. Just keep telling myself... Almost done. Almost done. Almost done. Almost done. Almost done.

I am such a nerd I used to read the encyclopedias when I was a kid (yes, back when people used books). Wasn't too big on studying what I was told though. Graduated with a BA- GPA 2.75. Smartened up when I got a little older PhD 3.6. Now much older and wiser (Yay my brain still works!) so far through prereqs and mostly through nursing school 4.0. Yes I study quite a bit, more than I did in grad school. So if I am any evidence, age doesn't matter much and previous poor grades don't necessarily predict future success.

Yes, and I am still smart after leaving it, haha. But I am science and technology smart, and tech and pure science come very easily and quickly to me, as does math, computers, mechanical skills, and a knack for being able to breeze thorough any of those things with a minimum of time and effort, and no feeling whatsoever that it was "gruntwork."

Nursing school, to me, was a totally different animal. Nursing didn't natuirally come to me. It was / is, for me, pure punishment to have to read, read, read, go over and over and over, memorize vast tonnage of things, and be subjected to never-ending rote learning, instead of memorize only relatively few facts and equations, and have school literally take up all of my time, day, night, evenings and weekends. The RN school that I spent a year at was very inefficient and confusing in the way it fragmented and rearranged topics in ways that just are not the norm.

So, I do believe there is a certain personality type that succeeds in nursing school, and perhaps being very bright is actually detrimental to one's success. I've had several friends go to MD or DO med school. Their education seemed much more factual and straightforward and time-efficient than what I was being subjected to in RN school. There's an old adage that "the brightest ones go to medical school." As in, they don't become nurses. I used to think that's an insult to nurses, but after experiencing nursing school, I think that is not so much an insult as maybe just a piece of good advice. If you are bright enough to pull high GPAs under the tedious and unrelenting workload of RN school, then you are bright enough and have stamina enough to succeed in med school, and there's far more upward mobility and larger paychecks in MD or DO than in nursing.

I really goofed off in high school.
I graduated by the skin of my teeth.
But I was not stupid.
I just really really hated high school and was miserable.

I barely held on in nursing school.
When life decides to crap on you, I am positive it waits until a person is in nursing school.

I study all the time on my own. I love to learn and I am smart enough, but you would never know it if you were to look at my grades in high school and nursing school.
Prereq's and my other random forays into formal learning left me with a 3.6 before nursing school.
THE GPA could have been better, but that was also left over from when I didn't apply myself like I did when I was older and seriously trying to get into nursing school.

I have no clue what my GPA is now.
I didn't even check out my final grade for nursing school... just knew I passed and that's all I cared about.

I did horrible in high school. I was not interested at all in it and would rather hang around with my friends and skip school then spend my days studying. I did well on pre-reqs that were not science related. I had A's in everything from english to psych. I hated A+P1 no matter how hard I tried to understand it I didn't do well on the tests I got the mininum C+. I loved A+P2 and microbiology and got an A- and B+ in them. They seemed so informative to me and I loved learning why our bodies do certain thing's and it all works. What helped me get into nursing school was my references from doctors I work with and I scored well on the TEAS test. As far as nursing school goes I have a 94 average. I wouldn't say I'm a great a student and all of my grades I had to study non stop to get. Some people seem to retain a lot from lectures I dont find that I do until I go home and look it all over. I am a bit of a perfectionist and am trying to break the cycle because it isn't healthy and just trying to tell myself as long as I pass the grade does not matter.