As you begin your first semester of nursing school, it can be TERRIFYING and OVERWHELMING with information thrown at you. I am a third-semester nursing student and tutor first and second-semester nursing students. While tutoring, I have noticed a few things. So let me give you some advice on how to be successful in your first semester and remaining semesters thereafter.
Buy a planner or use the planner on your phone.
This will help you stay organized with all the assignments and exams you'll have.
Record your lectures.
I have found that recording lecture is very helpful and it allows you to go back to the class to fill in things you may have missed. *tip* glance at your recorder when starting a new page or topic so that you can write down the time and quickly reference that part of the lecture later.
Take good notes and read your textbook.
This is not high school or your pre-requisites anymore. You need to read and think outside the box, make yourself critically think throughout the material. Do NOT just try to memorize, this will come back to haunt you later when you're in the second semester and the professor assumes you already know the basics.
Join/Form a study group.
This will help you tremendously. Study groups should be small (5 people at the most) and they should be treated like class. Don't invite people who are distracting or people that will slow you down.
Use your book resources.
Do the online practice questions that come with your textbook, they will help you get a feel for how the professor may present questions on your exam.
Have fun and make new friends.
Don't stick to yourself and be a loner. Nursing school is tough, and you and your classmates will need each other. Trust me.
Review your test.
This will allow you to see what you missed on the exam and will help you guide your focus for your cumulative finals.
Learn your pathophysiology!
Learn your pathophysiology! Learn it! Understand it thoroughly! Whatever you do, do NOT slack in this class. It is the foundation for every other class you'll have and doing well will help you so much when you're in MedSurg and you are trying to learn interventions. It just makes everything easier, to understand the disease process.
These are things I've noticed students slack on or didn't do their first semester and now ultimately they struggle in the semesters thereafter. Read your book, study every day and you'll do great. Do not expect the professor to teach you every little detail, because there's not enough time in class for that. Hold yourself accountable and learn as much as you can! Good luck. Hope this helps someone!
Very informative!! I'm starting nursing classes soon, tried to prepare myself, but didn't know where to start. My first class is A&P, so I'll look over some material I have from an previous medical assistant course I took. I think I'll create some flash cards on the things you listed so I'll be well prepared for these chapters.
Specializes in Nephrology Home Therapies, Wound Care, Foot Care..
It is NEVER too early to buy a set of NLEX review ards and start using them. ALWAYS thoroughly read the rationales, THAT'S where you learn. SO many cards that when I initially went through them, I had NO clue what they were talking about. Then inevitably, I would be in a lecture, something about that subject would gt mentioned, the rationale would fly into my brain, and I would have this AH HA moment! Personally love the Saunders NCLEX RN flash cards.
Specializes in Nephrology Home Therapies, Wound Care, Foot Care..
Today is my 56th birthday. I will begin the nursing program this fall. My only deep concern is my ability to physically keep up (strength and stamina and sleep) with the younger pack, but plan to really work hard on improving my health and abilities over the summer. I would just say don't let age hold you back. A LOT of the people in my A&P classes were SO young and had no real life experiences, lacked confidence and really made me feel better about my journeys over the years. I suppose it is different for every person, but I am going for it and plan on integrating the BSN program classes at the same time.
Julie- good for you! I started nursing school at 57, will graduate next spring, and was just accepted into the accelerated BSN program which runs concurrently. You have so much life experience that will stand you in good stead. I have no problems with keeping up, my brain may have a little less plasticity, but I have experienced neurons! Contact me anytime you feel discouraged, you're going to do great! Congratulations on your choices!
Today is my 56th birthday. I will begin the nursing program this fall. My only deep concern is my ability to physically keep up (strength and stamina and sleep) with the younger pack, but plan to really work hard on improving my health and abilities over the summer. I would just say don't let age hold you back. A LOT of the people in my A&P classes were SO young and had no real life experiences, lacked confidence and really made me feel better about my journeys over the years. I suppose it is different for every person, but I am going for it and plan on integrating the BSN program classes at the same time.
Read about neuroplasticity and how your brain can grow awesome new connections with new experiences. It will boost your confidence.
Best of luck!
Awesome! Good luck to you! I believe you'll be able to keep up with no problems. Just manage your time wisely and don't fall behind, you'll do great.
It is NEVER too early to buy a set of NLEX review ards and start using them. ALWAYS thoroughly read the rationales, THAT'S where you learn. SO many cards that when I initially went through them, I had NO clue what they were talking about. Then inevitably, I would be in a lecture, something about that subject would gt mentioned, the rationale would fly into my brain, and I would have this AH HA moment! Personally love the Saunders NCLEX RN flash cards.
That's great advice. I agree, reading the rationales for the questions you miss is very important. It will show you what you need to work on, because in nursing school there is only one correct answer, even though the other choices may appear to be correct as well. It's whichever is MOST correct in the situation. A lot of people struggle with that concept, but it's very important to realize and can be challenging if you don't know which key words to look for in a question. I will be writing a "how to take a nursing test" soon.
Thank you so much for the great advice!! I just received my letter saying I was accepted and I'm so nervous!! More so about the scheduling because I have to have some get my daughter on the bus in the mornings and I know the classes change frequently. This is a second career for me at 44, but I will give it all I got. I've already been told to expect to not have a life for the next two years!! Thank you again!
Specializes in Nephrology Home Therapies, Wound Care, Foot Care..
Buy a big planner, colored erasable pens, and put EVERYTHING in it, right down to study time. And never leave home without it. You can have a life, and time worth your daughter while in Nursing school. You just have to be extraordinarily organized!
Thank you so much....Is it advisable to take pathos during the summer before my first semester?
As long as it's not a May-mester class, I don't see why it would be a bad idea. It would definitely lighten your load a little bit your first semester and may give you an advantage in your other courses. For my school; Foundations, Health Assessment and Patho kind of correlated with one another and we'd usually be covering the same topic in each class. I found that to be really helpful in retaining the information. But if you already have Patho out of the way, I would think it would make your Assessment class easier to understand as well as Foundations. The reason being is, most of the time when you're in health assessment and you're learning for example, how to assess a patient's heart; you'll learn how to Auscultate different heart sounds such as S1,S2, S3 and S4. If you already knew that S3 and S4 were abnormalities and the cause of their occurrence, it would make it easier to visualize and truly understand what is going on. Also, you'd know what was occurring when you hear S1 (AV valve's closing/ "Lub" ) and S2 (Semilunar valve's closing/ " Dub" ).
In short, I guess it depends on if you want a relaxing summer before you start nursing school or if you want to lighten your load a little bit for the fall.
FutureNurse_84
13 Posts
Very informative!! I'm starting nursing classes soon, tried to prepare myself, but didn't know where to start. My first class is A&P, so I'll look over some material I have from an previous medical assistant course I took. I think I'll create some flash cards on the things you listed so I'll be well prepared for these chapters.
Thank you for your much needed advice😃