How hard is basic anatomy and pysiology

cracklingkraken, ASN, RN · May 30, 2014

There are a lot of factors that go into A&P that will determine its difficulty for an individual.

1) Your attentiveness & attendance - this is a bigger factor than most people realize

2) Your ability to understand the material - if you don't understand something, ASK or look for supplemental materials, such as Youtube vids, that will clarify/simplify concepts in a way you are able to comprehend

3) Your instructor - sorry, but if you have a bad instructor, looks like it's going to be a difficult semester

4) Your studying habits - give yourself more time for the harder material and ease up on the stuff you already know by heart

I'm sure there are many other factors that can affect the difficulty of A&P, but these are some main ones.

funtimes · May 30, 2014

How hard it is depends on your science background and study habits. There's really no individual concepts that are harder in A&P than in biology 101, there's just a lot more stuff to memorize and a lot more material covered. It covers so much material and its so fundamental to everything you do in health care that the class can kind of consume your life, so set aside a lot of time to devote to it.

Its definitely a big plus to have a professor who gives you a pretty good idea what is going to be on exams and quizzes. My first semester I had a professor who wasn't very well organized, tended to ramble in lectures, but he was extremely strict, and never cut you any slack. When we were doing lab exams you had to have the exact spelling of a structure right or you got zero points for it. You also never really knew what was important to study, so you had to spend a lot of time studying and memorizing everything, which is horrible because there's almost no limit to how in depth you can get for A&P. You'd also see stuff on tests that werent even mentioned in lectures. He was definitely old school. So my first semester was a little tough.

My second semester I had a professor who was a lot more lenient and laid out in advance what you needed to know for tests, so it made life a lot easier. What he covered in lecture was what you needed to know for the written exams, and for lab exams he laid out exactly what structures needed to be memorized, and didn't mark the entire question wrong if your spelling wasn't perfect.

HelloWish, ADN, BSN · May 30, 2014

It will probably be a bit shocking as your first college science class. Yes it is hard! You have to study and work hard in this class to do well, despite the instructor and it is a new learning curve for most!

mae0218 · May 30, 2014

I found A&P I to be easy to understand, but there was a ton of memorization. It was pretty time consuming, but not hard. A&P II had more physiology and was a bit on the difficult side. Knowing some basic chemistry helped me with A&P II. Just make sure you set aside plenty of study time, and you should be fine.

tbbtpeach · May 30, 2014

Hey! A&P seems to be one of those stumbling blocks for Pre-Nursing students. For me, I realized and understood that it was a difficult class with a heavy load of material and that I would need to buckle down and study. If you have a hard time understanding lecture-follow along with the book in your own time, review the material every night.

The best thing I ever did for myself was going to RateMyProfessor.com It sounds silly. But, how many times have you heard of someone complaining about their instructor? This website gives you recent reviews and ratings of professors and can help you avoid a truly terrible one! Every time I sign up for a class, I check this site!

Don't expect things to be easy at first. College is designed to make you think and you have to adapt to each professor's curriculum. Just keep at it! You can do it!

NurseGirl525, ASN, RN · May 30, 2014

I thought they were easy as long as you study. If you show up to class, take good notes, and study, there should not be a problem.

AmyRN303, BSN, RN · May 30, 2014

Heathermaizey said:
I thought they were easy as long as you study. If you show up to class, take good notes, and study, there should not be a problem.

I agree, and I never took more away from rate my professor than a few disgruntled students. My micro professor had five or six poor reviews (and of course a couple of positive one) and she was likely my best professor outside of the nursing program. She just happens to be strict about deadlines and the rubric for grading and some people apparently didn't want to do the work.

VivaLaVespaGirl, BSN, MSN · May 30, 2014

If course/chapter objectives are provided, use them in your studying, otherwise you will end up studying the entire text. Get into your school library and utilize the bone boxes and the muscle men for studying - the library should have some available for checkout. When it comes to muscles, study from as many different model types as possible because a muscle may look one way on one model and slightly different on another. Get in a study group and quiz each other. There is a lot of memorization and you just have to know that going in. Commit yourself to that and you will be fine.

tbbtpeach · May 30, 2014

Obviously, it's biased. But, you are getting some student perspectives. It's a resource that should be taken advantage of. :)

pmabraham, BSN, RN · May 30, 2014

Good day, TIffany1579:

If you love hardcore sciences, AP1 will be easy to medium in terms of difficulty. If sciences are new to you or just "eh," then AP1 will be extremely hard.

https://allnurses.com/pre-nursing-student/how-get-any-846733.html is a great article to read and follow for every class. One of the things I learned just before I took A&P 1 that was really helpful in terms of study planning was to treat lecture as one three credit class, and lab as another three credit class vs one class worth four credits. That meant I was putting in a minimum of twelve hours per week of study time in addition to class/lab time rather than eight. Those extra hours helped make a difference in the outcome.

Do stay for the entire lab time especially if the teacher states lab time is not required or that you can leave at any time. The hardcore sciences -- AP1, AP2, Microbiology -- require a lot of contact time in lab as well as lecture. As suggested, if your school does have a separate learning/tutoring center that has the models, also spend several hours a week there as well.

For lecture, I got permission to record all lectures. I would record while I was taking notes. Then later on in the day, I would re-listen to the lecture and adjust notes as necessary. From then on, I would re-listen to the lectures any chance I could get. I also created flashcards at quizlet.com. I did my best to read chapters in advance of the lecture so I could more easily follow the lecture and take notes.

For lab, 1st day of a new unit would typically involve taking pictures of all of the models; often times several pictures per model in order to highlight key areas of the model. I would float between different lab groups to sit on individual study sections, offer input and accept input before floating to another group. As an introvert, it felt weird to avoid having a set lab partner as well as floating around between groups, but that way I got to know my fellow classmates, and cover material from a broader angle.

The evening of the 1st day would involve coming up with a strategy to learn the material. Often times I would create my own scrap book/study guide based on the pictures so that anytime I was not in lab or in the learning center working with the models, I could refer to the scrap book.

If all of this sounds like a lot of time, yes, it was a lot of time -- a minimum of 12 hours per week; putting in 18 to 24 (for just this one class) wasn't uncommon.

While I'm through AP1, AP2, and Microbiology, I still remember being told AP1 was the make or break class. If you can get an "A" in AP1, you should do well in all other hardcore sciences to follow was what I was told.

Thank you.

slsorren · May 30, 2014

I just finished my first week of A&P1. So far it is not too bad, however I know I am the type who has to study a lot! I read the chapters before class/lab, take notes in class, and rewrite/reread them so they stick. I take my own book notes along with the professors notes. Make sure you put the time and effort into it and know it will not be a breeze!