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Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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I remember being new to nursing school and I remember freaking out about how difficult nursing school was going to be for me, especially after reading many posts on here. I was stressing out the entire summer before my first fall semester and I kept doubting that I would be able to get through these classes.

A lot of people on here say that nursing school will suck up all of your time and you will be studying 24/7 and left with no social life. Now, I understand that everyone is a different type of student, but DON'T go into nursing school thinking that it will be pure hell to get through. EVERYONE is different. What may be difficult for some may be easy for others. Don't stress about it so much ahead of time. It may be easier than you think. You won't know until you experience these classes on your own. This website is GREAT for advice, but I just wanted to advise you not to stress out over what people say about how hard nursing school is. Not saying it is a walk in the park but I don't find it too bad so maybe you may not too!

Good luck!

Thanks for posting this!

I'm about to enter semester 2 out of 4. Semester 1 was harder than I expected, but what really helped me was giving up on being a straight A student. The grading scale is 93 and above for an A, so when I got halfway thru a class and saw it was an 88% or a 90%, it was time to stop stressing. A B is a B, whether it's an 84% or a 92%, so why knock myself out? I'll miss my pretty GPA, but I'll still be an RN either way. I need me-time to take care of myself. I already burned out of one career, I can't let that happen again in nursing. I'm in the top nursing school in my state, so a B here is probably an A anywhere else. I just have to think positively.

Thanks for the encouragement! I start Wednesday so I am a little nervous.

I needed this post. I start school on the 19th. An 80 is lowest one can make in my program and still pass. I'm a little nervous, but not too worried about it. I got this far, so I'm sure I will succeed. :up:

I needed this post. I start school on the 19th. An 80 is lowest one can make in my program and still pass. I'm a little nervous but not too worried about it. I got this far, so I'm sure I will succeed. :up:[/quote']

Thats the same thing in my case...but we will survive! Giving up is not an option for us at this point in the game, and we will both succeed!! Good luck!

Specializes in Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation.
I'm about to enter semester 2 out of 4. Semester 1 was harder than I expected, but what really helped me was giving up on being a straight A student. The grading scale is 93 and above for an A, so when I got halfway thru a class and saw it was an 88% or a 90%, it was time to stop stressing. A B is a B, whether it's an 84% or a 92%, so why knock myself out? I'll miss my pretty GPA, but I'll still be an RN either way. I need me-time to take care of myself. I already burned out of one career, I can't let that happen again in nursing. I'm in the top nursing school in my state, so a B here is probably an A anywhere else. I just have to think positively.

That's how I was rolling through my 2nd half of my first semester. I had a high B in pharm and fundamentals part 2, but I was pulling my hair out trying for that A. I realized then that grades don't particularly matter too much in comparison to actually know what your doing in the field and passing the nclex so I loosened up a LOT more.

My advice for you upcoming 1st semesters is to spend a lot of time studying, maybe ALL of your time the first few weeks. Once you've gotten how things work at your program, then start to loosen up. That's what I did haha. Just make sure you time manage! That is key!

I had the opposite experience: Started nursing school thrilled, excited, deadly serious about succeeding, willing to do it day and night or whatever it takes, striving for perfection. And determined to thoroughly learn everything because I knew I'd need to use it later. I didn't expect it to be difficult, because I had top grades in my non-RN preqs and my other two degrees and my preentrance exams, I'd completed non-nursing associate degree and a business degree and had already had a career. I was burned out on nursing school within 9 months, and I didn't finish a full year.

Honestly, I think that how you feel about A&P and how easy or hard or fun or tedious or interesting or dull you found A&P is perhaps the best indicator of how RN school's first year will strike you. In spite of what the instructors say, there *is* a great amount of memorization to be done in nursing. But it doesn't stop there. You must memorize it, retain it, understand it, and be able to apply it. Nursing school content was 180 degrees from the science and manufacturing and technology work that I enjoy, and I didn't like all of the sitting in lectures all day only to have to sit all night and study. By the time I left, I was totally burned out from the grind. I thought I'd try a different school but the farther away I got, the less I cared.

How well-structured and well-organized the school's program is matters, too. Proper planning on their part, and arranging the content so that it makes it easier not harder for students to learn really helps. The school I was at didn't teach the typical block curriculum and the usual units like college degree programs have. It was a hospital based program, and the topics and the clinicals were simply scheduled around the availability of hospital facilities and what the school wanted to accomplish that particular term. The clinicals were rotations, not even in sync with what was being taught in the lecture. Your clinical for the term might happen before or after the material was covered in class. That made twice the work for us students. If you are in a school where they kind of chop up the units into bits & pieces and sequence them randomly, or the clinicals are handled like a totally different program, expect that you must get right on it and keep on it, because you will have to work 2x as hard in a program like that. There's no way to catch up if you get behind in those "integrated" programs like that, because those programs keep students consistently fully loaded with work, required to be on the hospital premises every day with little time off, and essentially overbooked all the time.

Specializes in Med-Surg.

I played a lot of World of Warcraft through my two years of nursing school. And the month leading up to me taking the NCLEX. :cheeky:

I played a lot of World of Warcraft through my two years of nursing school. And the month leading up to me taking the NCLEX. :cheeky:

Stress relief? Lol

Specializes in ICU.
I played a lot of World of Warcraft through my two years of nursing school. And the month leading up to me taking the NCLEX. :cheeky:

Ditto!

Another Thank you for your post! I definitely think encouragement is better than fear/scare tactics no matter what the intention of the poster is.

LOL I too appreciate you stating this. However, I have already spent most of my summer so nervous about all this. The classes, my new work schedule, what if I fail etc etc etc. Its good to know that there are other experiences out there other than you will die in nursing school:)

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