Advice for Students

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Do not slack off in your prereq's. They are extremely important to your success in nursing school. If you work hard in anatomy and physiology it will pay off in the end. Without a strong understanding in that course, it will be hard to incorporate all that you learn in nursing school. Concepts will be superficial without a solid base. If you have a chance to take nutrition as a prereq, take it. Nutrition is hit hard in virtually all nursing classes. There will be on average 2 questions per test dealing with nutrition throughout your nursing program.

Once in your program, focus hard on pharm. This class seems to be one of the tougher courses because of the way in which the material is presented. It is like opening a phone book and being asked to memorize the book. Group medications into classes. Notice the ending of the generic names. For example, propanolol (beta blocker). Noticing that beta blockers end in lol will help you to identify medications. Most medications follow this rationale so it is important that you know the generic name first and then memorize the brand names for popular medications. Another key to pharm is to know your receptors. Know the response those receptors illicit once stimulated. There are key receptors in the body. For the purposes of drugs, these receptors are Alpha 1/2, Beta 1/2, Ach (acytlecholine), dopamine. There are more, but these are key. Especially with heart and asthma medications.

Break the side effects down to common or expected and then to adverse or not expected/detrimental. Know what are indications to discontinue medication. As it pertains to side effects make sure you can group side effects. It will be impossible to know all the side effects for each medication, but if you can group side effects into neuro, GI, or cardiac it is helpful. Know the side effects for each body system. If you say that they have neuro side effects, know that entails confusion, ataxia, ect.

I hope some of this helps.

J

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I am starting nursing school in August and I will take all the advice I can get. So many people have told me nursing school is hard and you have to study a lot. On average, how long did you study each day? Did you study for an hour and take a break?

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Love this. Any other tips or suggestions you are willing to post or email I am looking forward to. Thanks!

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The ironic thing about nursing school is the material isn't so hard. The hard part of nursing school is the way in which they ask the questions. It leaves a lot open for interpretation. You are given scenarios and expected to pick the best response. The problem with the scenario is it doesn't give you the whole picture so you are left to fill in the blanks. It isn't the proper way to test in my opinion.

For instance, many questions deal with what is the primary nursing intervention or what is the primary assessment. In a lot of cases that depends on things that aren't spelled out in the question. Combined that with the fact they put two appropriate answers and you are left scratching your head. Nursing school is the only program that you can know everything about the question they are asking and still get it wrong. It is extremely frustrating. The quicker you get accustomed to their unique type of questions the better off you will be. Your school is ultimately concerned with its students pass rate on the NCLEX. Having that in mind it is wise to get accustomed to the way they ask questions. I suggest all students entering school to study for the hurst review upon entering and midway through the program. It is a good review that puts all the pieces together.

More about nursing school later. Keep asking questions and I will answer.

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Specializes in Ortho/Med/Surg.

so helpful! Thanks!

Do you recommend work as a TMA to get used to pharm?

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Thank you for the great advice!!!

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What about becoming a CNA/HHA while taking pre-reqs and while in nursing school? Also, I am terrible at math! How do I do well in math? I am hoping that by getting CNA certified, it will help me while I am taking my sciences. I am currently getting all my GE's out of the way. This fall I am taking a CNA course, speech, and life-span. (life-span) I am obviously not working this fall. ;-)

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What about becoming a CNA/HHA while taking pre-reqs and while in nursing school? Also, I am terrible at math! How do I do well in math? I am hoping that by getting CNA certified, it will help me while I am taking my sciences. I am currently getting all my GE's out of the way. This fall I am taking a CNA course, speech, and life-span. (life-span) I am obviously not working this fall. ;-)

Coincidentally, I'm opting for a very similar route! It seems you're currently taking prereqs and will continue to this fall. If you aren't so skilled in math, of the three courses you're taking this fall, would it be wiser to include one math course in your schedule and remove a either lifespan or speech? Just my suggestion I guess :S..I'm not such a math-whiz myself so I'm wondering if I should just take 2 courses this fall and hopefully do PT work in patient-care to receive the CNA (3 week course I believe). I've read and spoke w/ a nursing program advisor and she conveyed that grades are extremely important, B+ or better in all prereqs! :confused::cool:

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Speech and life span are both accelerated courses broken up in one semester, and I am confident I will do well. I was just thinking about taking a full semester math course in the Spring while I take anatomy. I am sure I will be stuck in the math lab. My problem is, is that I just don't get it.

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If you're not great at math I recommend going to http://www.khanacademy.org

I watched his videos for Chem and they helped me earn an A.

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I was just wondering, why are some people applying to more then 1 Ivy Tech campus? Wouldnt that be a heck of a drive for some people if they lived in Jeffersonville and got into the Indy campus?

Also, if I took the TEAS test and didnt do very well in the math portion because honestly, I suck at math, and that is the absolute truth, but anyway, if I didnt do very well and didnt get into the RN program, does that automatically put me in to the LPN program, or is that something I would have to apply for too?

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One poster asked about working as a TMA to get prepared for pharm. Any atmosphere that you are exposed to drug names and their uses is very helpful. Get a phone app and everytime you hear a drug look it up on your phone. always know the class of medication. learn the generic name first. the brand names will come with time.

extensive math is not really needed. you only have to know how to do dimensional analysis. there are books through amazon that can cover the math you need for medications. it is easy once you get the hang of it.

i worked as a scribe in a busy E.D. before i entered nursing school. it was very helpful. the only downside to that job was i began to think like a doctor instead of a nurse. there are things outside the scope of a nurse and you can get tricked into picking those answers on the test.

testing in nursing school is heavy on ordering interventions according to their priority. in med-surg you will see that a lot of the times the priority interventions will deal with airway maintenance.

post surgery hits mostly on post-op bleeding.

the best ecg book that money can buy is "rapid interpretation of ecg's by dale dubin"

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