I am so frustrated with Anatomy & Physiology :(

[Jonahyona]

Hello everyone,

I am currently in Anatomy & Physiology 1. It is a prerequisite to the Nursing program here at my college. My current average is only a 71 (You need a 76 to pass). We get a TON of material to study and memorize (200 or so terms). Lecture is completely useless to what we do in the lab. I study for hours only to feel like I have learned nothing. We get quizzes during lab on things we need to self-teach ourselves. Honestly, I feel like the entire course is self-teaching. The professors are useless and you can tell that they really don't care. I have emailed them before and I get a vague, careless response from them.

I KNOW I am not the only one in my class who is failing. I feel like a majority of the class is. Anatomy & Physiology takes up so much of my time that all my other classes work gets put off. It has also simply made me depressed. I get so frustrated because no matter what I do I seem to barely pass/ fail the exams. I may just drop out of the program. I don't know what else I can do. I feel like I am in med-school sometimes. My school offers no study groups, extra help and even the A&P professors obviously don't care if most of their class fails or not.

I see my goal of ever becoming a nurse slowly floating away.

- A frustrated A&P student.

[loriangel14, RN]

The OP needs to take responsibility for their own learning. A&P is not going to be any different or any easier anywhere else.The reality is that A&P is lot of memorization and a lot of studying. Blaming the school or the teachers is anot a mature attitude.Don't wait around for them to make it "easy" for you.A&P is important and you need to learn it well, not take a dumbed down class designed to give people high marks.Yes labs are a lot of self learning.That's part of being an adult in school.Why are you blaming the school for not offering study groups.Start your own.Take responsibility instead of whining.

[Camwill, ASN, BSN, MSN, DNP, LPN, APRN, NP]

I can understand where you are coming from, our teacher wants us to know everything but doesnt test everything, but you never know what will be on the test. The only thing I can tell you is the subjects we have to learn are very difficult. If the way you are studying is not working for you, you have to try something else. My recommendation is maybe you are a visual learner, have you tried youTubing anything you don't understand. There are great videos there. For example for you lab they have videos with people pointing out bones or muscles or any other system you are on. Also the explain concepts like muscle contractions. You can also look on itunesU. There are professors from other universities that lecture A&P on podcast. One other website is Khanacdemey .org that website has help on other subjects as well as biology.

With the profession we are choosing we are going to have to teach ourselves concepts and verify with our professors that we understand. I am taking 17 credits this semester and I took a class before the semester started to find out what type of learner I am. I need a little of everything. I cannot just read, or hear lecture, or write a ton of notes. I have to do all of that to get the grade I want which so far is all A's.

Try to find out what type of learner you are, maybe that will help! Good luck!

[StudentNurse006]

jonahyona said:

i'm considering dropping out of the course depending on how my next lecture exam and practical go. i am barely scraping by with a c- and over 60% of the class is failing. i plan to transfer to a community college next semester so i can take a&p there instead. i got screwed over because my professor is awful. there is another a&p professor and all of his class gets a's and b's but not my class.

loriangel14 said:

the op needs to take responsibility for their own learning. a&p is not going to be any different or any easier anywhere else.the reality is that a&p is lot of memorization and a lot of studying. blaming the school or the teachers is anot a mature attitude.don't wait around for them to make it "easy" for you.a&p is important and you need to learn it well, not take a dumbed down class designed to give people high marks.yes labs are a lot of self learning.that's part of being an adult in school.why are you blaming the school for not offering study groups.start your own.take responsibility instead of whining.

i think that blaming others is part of life so is whining but you can't ban a person for expressing themselves no matter how you consider it as mature or immature. but i think it's best to try your best in anatomy and physiology till exams but try to register in other community college as well. just in case you failed miserably at least you have a second plan.

[Streamline2010]

Jonahyona said:

I'm considering dropping out of the course depending on how my next lecture exam and practical go. I am barely scraping by with a C- and over 60% of the class is failing. I plan to transfer to a community college next semester so I can take A&P there instead. I got screwed over because my professor is awful. There is another A&P professor and all of his class gets A's and B's but not my class.

I am going to give you (all) some advice, of the been-there-done-that, and decided that R.N. is not worth it anymore: The A&P experience that you are having could be a very accurate barometer / predictor of how your entire experience with nursing classes will go, unless you can find a way that makes it fun and easy for you to teach yourself to absorb large quantities of material in insufficient time. I had the same issues with A&P I. I found A&P II a little more interesting, because physiology has some action in it, where A&P I was just basically tedious rote memorization of the parts of the body, and struggling with Latin.

Unfortunately, I scored very high on my RN preentrance exams, and was accepted by 3 of 4 programs that I applied to. I am failing out of the one that I chose, and for pretty much the same reasons that I did not achieve straight A in A&P: You teach yourself, the lecture time is almost truly worthless unless you have a question to ask the prof, because A&P is learned by repetition and rote and going home and doing 5 hrs for every lecture hour, and going over and over it. Nursing school is just like that, except that you put in 6-8 hour days, then go home and write 6-hour papers, run on 5 hours or less sleep, an the amount of information that they throw at you and expect you to absorb makes A&P I and II look like a walk in the park.

So, take stock of your situation and decide whether or not your like the "feel" of A&P and that level of effort for only 4 credits, because the nursing classes, by the time you hit nursing II or III will be even higher workload, and you will most definitely be teaching yourself.

At the college that I took my A&P, they said that on average 60% of the students fail A&P the first time. I almost think that the colleges purposely don't tell students how to study for it (and that it's going to be all drill) because they are making an awful lot of money off of the students who repeat it.

[Streamline2010]

loriangel14 said:

The OP needs to take responsibility for their own learning. A&P is not going to be any different or any easier anywhere else.The reality is that A&P is lot of memorization and a lot of studying. Blaming the school or the teachers is anot a mature attitude.Don't wait around for them to make it "easy" for you.A&P is important and you need to learn it well, not take a dumbed down class designed to give people high marks.Yes labs are a lot of self learning.That's part of being an adult in school.Why are you blaming the school for not offering study groups.Start your own.Take responsibility instead of whining.

^^^ Oh, and THAT is the philosophy of nursing programs too, btw. "IF you can't keep up, either keep up or get out." I really wish someone had warned me about the workload of even the 2-year programs. I deliberately stayed out of the 2nd degree accelerated BSRNs because I thought 2 years would be a comfortable and enjoyable workload. Wrong. Should have just gone for the accelerated 2nd degree b/c the 2-year is a full 2 years of no free time, inadequate prep time for everything, and no or inadequate sleep as "feature of the system."

[bonnie_d]

I did fairly well in A&P. The first test I got 105% on, and I only got under 100% on two tests during the semester. And I was pregnant. The instructor has a reputation of being a hard teacher, too, at a private school (I don't know if that means anything, but the school has a good rep so it wasn't just an easy class).

Here's what I did: I studied with someone who didn't get the lecture at ALL. I mean, I seriously think he had a learning disability because he couldn't understand diagrams or anything. After each lecture we'd set up a study time, and I would explain the whole lecture to him again, in detail, going over some ideas over and over again, pulling out of the back recesses of my head whatever kinds of analogies I could think of. Once I started doing this, I did very little study besides this and I did very well on tests.

I copied all of my notes after each lecture (as soon as possible) neatly, and made sure I learned what I didn't understand. I asked a lot of questions in class.

I made flashcards of most of the terms we were learning. I condensed the information sometimes, just to give myself a reminder of what I already knew. (IE, abbreviations, trigger terms for lists). I would go over them on the way to school (I walk).

I listened to lectures, sometimes a few times in a row. The night before my first test I put them on and went to sleep to them. I still remember how I learned the word hydrolysis because my teacher made a joke about her "pop beads" coming apart...hehe, I can still hear her voice saying the joke because I listened to that lecture so many times.

I crammed for practicum in lab. They were not cumulative, so I saw no problem with going into lab for a few sessions before the practicum and brushing up on everything.

The second semester I didn't do as well on tests but I still got an A (I was also more pregnant!). I wasn't able to study with the student that had such difficulty because he dropped the class, but I still listened to lectures, etc. It was harder without someone to teach it to.

I studied once a week at a study group put together by the prof. You could do the same by just inviting people to get together, and ask whoever in the class who is doing best to come and teach you (and learn in the meantime).

It sounds like you have an awful instructor, but you can get through it! It's hard even with a good teacher, so I wish you the best of luck.

[taylorxteddy]

I didn't read a lot of the other posts, so sorry if I repeat anything...

I took A&P I and II as honors sections and grabbed an A in both.

For A&P I, our lab practical was tons of memorizing. We had to know every major muscle, and every single bone. The professor didn't help us at all. We just had to learn them throughout the semester. I think that is just part of A&P.

I've read a lot of statistics that you remember way less of what you read, see, hear, etc as opposed to what you teach. Teaching (whether to a friend, parent, mirror, invisible person) someone else let's you know what you know and don't know.

MOST of my class failed or scraped a C/D. Only those that worked their tails off got A's and B's and this was AFTER he curved the tests by 10 points. You should never take these science courses with other subjects that are difficult for you. I always tried to balance my schedule with one science, one course that required a lot of reading/essays, and two other subjects that were easier for me. This semester I'm in pharmacology, philosophy, intro to computers honors, and french and it is a nightmare, but it's good for me as I start nursing school in January and I need the extra push.

Don't give up! If you have to drop it, do so, because it's better than failing and retaking. Figure out why this course is beating you, and turn around and beat it. If you want to be a nurse, you can do it, but it takes a lot of hard work and patience.

Good luck! :)

[maruska]

I know this is an old post but I just read it and wanted to leave a comment. I hope it's not discouraging or anything, it's just my opinion.

If you cannot pass A&P 1, you definitelly are not going to pass A&P 2. These classes are baby stuff if you compare it with what you are going to have to study next as a part of your nursing program. And I don't think I or anyone else would be happy to have a nurse to take care of you who does not have a clue about/has a hard time/or has to memorize the body parts. If you don't know how to study, make sure you first take critical thinking classes. And make sure you don't memorize stuff, but learn to understand and associate things, because all what you memorize will go out of your memory within next year, so it won't be helpful. And I guess you don't want to just get a good grade, you want to be a good professional. I guess it is easy for me to talk like this because I am from a different country, America is the only country that does not educate their students about how to think, how to learn.. American A&P classes are considered to be high school difficulty classes in my country. So what we can do to be able to do great in nursing programs? A couple of things: go to a good high school that will get your thinking ready; take critical thinking classes; when you're taking A&P make sure you're in touch with your instructor - through daily email, or visit his/her office once a week; start a study group; study by associating not memorizing; simplify things; make tables!!!; ask and answer "what, where, when, why"; watch videos on youtube or khanacademy or any other educational website with the needed material; be active in the classroom - ask questions; study actively and be focused - tell someone what you learned as if you were teaching it - because as Einstein said it: If you cannot explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

[mz23]

NenaRK said:

I am in the same boat! I'm in A&P 1 and it is the most frustrating class I've ever had. I used to think math was hard, HA! I understand the material, and I truly enjoy learning it, I think the human body is fascinating. It's the amount of material that is hard. I have tried various ways of studying, I take notes in class, I make and use flashcards, I read the text and highlight key points, I use masteringaandp.com, and I use an anatomy coloring book. The first test, I did horribly on. I got a 60 something on lecture and a 22 on lab!!!

I studied more for the NEXT test, thinking I would FOR SURE get a B. Nope, got a C on both lab and lecture. WHATS WRONG WITH ME?

During school when I am not in class, I go to the

study area and either read or make flashcards for about an hour. At home, I probably spend 2 hours a day reviewing material.

My boyfriend's mom is an RN and she said that she got an A in A&P and that she didn't even have to take the final. She told me that she didn't have all the "extras" to study like coloring books and online resources. She just read the text and highlighted, and read it over and over and over again. Granted, she was 27 when she started college and I'm 20 right now. I've heard age makes a big difference in college. Anyway, She said she would be glad to help me study whenever I want.

I'm not going to give up though, even if I make a C in the class, at least I know I tried

You just described me. I keep studying and studying only to end up with Cs. The test before last i got like 80% on multiple. Choice but then got an F on the essay qs so ended up with a dang c and my lab test i screwed up and got an F. 2

More tests left, lab journal to turn in and a research paper I'm really trying for a b. Dont know how realistic that is but I'm trying....*sigh*

[Taiyab]

I've found doing online video courses a good way of learning anatomy/physiology.

The one I use is: https://www.meducation.net/collections/funky_professor

[pinkrain94]

Try your best! If you can't pass, just retake it hun. There are LOADS of people who retake the class and do a lot better next time around. Sometimes you do have to take it twice, to realize your failures in these things. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I was just told by a nurse yesterday on here that I basically was a failure for doing it twice. You are NOT a failure. Don't even let it bother you. Ask the professor questions and perhaps if you didn't take the final, study extra hard. You're actually not that far off from passing. I came out of my A&P 1 class with only a few students left because most of them had withdrew and we started with a full class. It IS hard and anyone who says it is easy is ridiculous!

If you do have to retake it (not saying you will), don't beat yourself up. Chances are the person next to you is in the same boat. I was last semester but I picked myself up. I even thought if I didn't get an A I was a failure. I got an 88% and I still felt like crap but then realized, you know what? I was so close to an A and I really did well.

[luffle]

It depends on how your test is structured. There isn't one studying method that works for everyone so don't compare yourself to your bf's mom or think there's something wrong with you. It might be worthwhile to see what type of learner you are and then try different methods of study. Also go over your old tests and see if you had understood the concepts to the questions you missed. If you didn't understand them then flash cards didn't work. Try something else. If you did understand them, see why you missed the question. Sometimes people change their answers or don't read carefully.