Accelerated BSN Student Support

Peer support is/was huge in my accelerated BSN program. I am due to graduate in August and the support of my friends and classmates has been instrumental to my success.

The key for me was focus. If I had three hours to study, I used those three hours. I knuckled down, minimized distractions, used every resource I could find and stopped at the end of those three hours. I scheduled every aspect of my day, from time with my kid to the gym to eating to napping, to internet surfing, to classtime, to study time. I stuck to this schedule and it worked beautifully. I have a 3.7 GPA, am being inducted into Sigma Theta Tau next week and have not stayed up past 11 pm a single time doing schoolwork throughout the entire course. I have classmates who procrastinate and nap in the afternoons and then find themselves up at 3 am trying to finish an assignment. They then show up to class sleep-deprived, which means another nap that afternoon, with another three hours wasted. A huge part of success in an accelerated program is attendance. Showing up for lecture was half the battle for me. Further, I paid very close attention in class and asked questions when I didn't understand something. I used classroom time productively, unlike some other students who surfed the net, texted, or napped. They then found themselves behind with regard to reading and studying.

My schedule does not work for everybody, and my situation is unique because I am a single mother of a toddler. His needs had to be scheduled in with mine. I still have had time to have a social life. It's been a wild ride and a great run and I have loved almost every minute of it. My favorite courses were OB/Peds and my least favorites were Critical Care and Research.

Best of luck to you!

I'd echo the importance of time managment. My program is 11 months, and is pretty full-on all the time, but is managable enough because I just decided ahead of time that for these 11 months, my job and hobby is nursing school, and I do virtually nothing else. On the other hand, there is a gal in my program with three young kids, and she is doing as well as I am but is even more efficient in planning her time.

What helps us is that we all get along really well (very important, I heard the last accelerated class had students throwing books at each other!) and asking the instructors to lay out very clearly ahead of time what assignments, tests, and clinicals are about and when they are due.

And just suck it up and hang in there. It ain't easy, but on the other hand I couldn't imagine spending another 2 years in school in the traditional program.