Advice to a pre-nursing student?

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I am starting my gen ed's in the spring, then starting nursing in the summer. I'm taking a nursing program at my community college, which is a good program!! Any advice? My mom graduated from Nursing 1 and 2 about 10 years ago so she gave me her books. I have read through the NCLEX-PN by saunders and I love it. I learned a lot. I looked through the pharmacology book and am starting on my anatomy book. I am thinking about starting to look over the medical terminology. What advice do you have? I am thinking about printing handouts online and putting them all in a binder to help me learn before I get into the nursing 1. What helps you study? Sometimes I get so tired and I have no idea how to keep the energy in my body to study all that much.

Any advice would really help! Thanks!:redbeathe

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Specializes in Home Care.

Don't get yourself overwhelmed. Concentrate on one thing at a time.

You're going to have enough work with the gen ed classes. Brushing up on medical terminology in your spare time is ok, but I wouldn't bother with the pharm stuff yet.

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I agree - relax while you still can! Reviewing medical terminology is not a bad idea, as it makes it a little easier to "decode" what people are saying when you start nursing classes, but for the most part I wouldn't worry about too much at the moment. When you get to nursing classes, everyone will be in the same boat, and there is plenty of room to ask questions. You will be assigned LOTS and LOTS of things that will help you get to where you need to be.

Don't stress too much now :)

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I will be starting the nursing program in January, so technically I am still a 'pre-nursing' student. :D

My advice to you, would be to focus on the classes you are taking. I use to think the pre-reqs were a waste of time, and you would just re-learn everything in the nursing program. The more I read on this site, I realize it is imperative to have a solid foundation of p\Patho, the A&P's, Micro & even Psychology. When I took both psych classes, I really thought I would never hear about Maslow's or anything else like that again. Well, do a quick search on this site and you will see that is far from the truth. Athough I received A's in all my classes, I really didn't walk away retaining much info, and have been using the time I have now, and until I start the program, to brush up on everything.

Okay, I've been up since 4:30am, and I'm having a hard time putting into words what I mean. LOL! Hopefully you can comprehend that mumbo jumbo.

Oh, and because I was unable to apply for the nursing program right away, I also took some classes that complemented nursing (phlebotomy, med ethics, med first responder, med term, etc). :specs:

Good luck!

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Start reading Pharmacology!! The more you understand drugs, the better. The very worse subjects of nursing:

Endocrine System

GI system

get the NCLEX 4,000 on disk

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I will be starting the nursing program in January, so technically I am still a 'pre-nursing' student. :D

My advice to you, would be to focus on the classes you are taking. I use to think the pre-reqs were a waste of time, and you would just re-learn everything in the nursing program. The more I read on this site, I realize it is imperative to have a solid foundation of p\Patho, the A&P's, Micro & even Psychology. When I took both psych classes, I really thought I would never hear about Maslow's or anything else like that again. Well, do a quick search on this site and you will see that is far from the truth. Athough I received A's in all my classes, I really didn't walk away retaining much info, and have been using the time I have now, and until I start the program, to brush up on everything.

Okay, I've been up since 4:30am, and I'm having a hard time putting into words what I mean. LOL! Hopefully you can comprehend that mumbo jumbo.

Oh, and because I was unable to apply for the nursing program right away, I also took some classes that complemented nursing (phlebotomy, med ethics, med first responder, med term, etc). :specs:

Good luck!

Thank you for your answer! That gives me a lot of insight on what I should be doing now. I have more Gen Eds in the spring.. and hopefully i'll be accepted in by next fall. Good chance. But I have a job now so I am not like studying my heart out on all of it, but I am brushing up and refreshing my memory of anatomy, learning some pharmacology, and just reading the NCLEX when I can. And I am in the same boat as you- not able to apply for the nursing right away. I will have to be taking a lot more classes than just in the nursing program because it's 12 credits for fulltime and if I go fulltime I get my tuition paid for. And so I am planning on taking medical terminology and first responder for sure. Do you have any study methods that help you? Do you recommend a job while going to school fulltime, especially nursing program?

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