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.
