I will begin Collin County's ADN program this month. I'm trying to get organized and figure out how to tackle all of this assigned reading. I've already began reading, but it will definitely take me over a week to read all the assigned pages just for the first day of class. How do you stay on top of it? Do you read every single page assigned, or do you outline your course objectives, use accompanying study guides and CD roms? I just don't see how I will be able to keep up with all of the reading, especially once Clinicals begin.
I'm not trying to find an easy way out, I'm just hoping some experienced students can lend me some good advice! I'm so excited to begin this journey, but I'm scared I will be a bit overwhelmed at first!
Look how your text is organized. There might be 4 chapters on Cardiac with the first being patho. Most people read chapters in order but a lot of times the Nursing Care is in the later chapters. Start with those and look back to the patho and diagnostic tests info as it comes up in the nursing care. It will be more meaningful then and if you run out of time and only know the patho and diagnostics you won't do well on an exam that will be focused on nursing care.
I only started NS a week ago, but what I've done is read the necessary bits and skim the rest of reading in order to get the homework done, and then later go back and read the remainder at a later time. It breaks it up into smaller chunks and makes it more manageable.
check to see how in depth your powerpoints are. I just posted on another thread that my professor covered all the main points in the chapter. I read the whole chapter and highlighted, and found the professor's powerpoints and my highlights and notes were exactly the same. So Im skimming. Professor also sent us a page of what we need to know for the whole semester in the form of critical thinking questions. So I started answering them and it involves a lot of refference to the text. I am enjoying it so far. BTW my class dosen't officially start until tomorrow.
I didn't bother with anything before lecture, because usually I was studying for a test.
I would use the powerpoints, go over the stuff in the book that I really didn't understand, hit the NCLEX book and the HESI book, go back over notes and powerpoints and hit highlights in the book.
Usually I could get all my reading done in the book...unless it was just torturous material like renal...I hate renal.
Preface: my methods aren't exactly standard, and on paper they really shouldn't work.....but it does for me, and my grades prove it. I was the A student in high school that made teachers clutch their heads because they couldn't figure out how my system worked, but there really IS a method to my madness!
That being said I don't do any reading until after lecture. All of my instructor use Pps for class. I print those, skim over them the night before, and take notes during. After studying that, I read the specific topics that I don't have a great grasp on. The other 90 pages? I flip through and skim it super fast. If at all. Pps and NCLEX review book - that's my magic combo for nursing school goodness.
For prereq classes (A&P and the like) if there weren't Pps I still didn't read - just took thorough notes during lectures and read up on specific topics afterwards.
I told you, on paper I look like a bad student. But at least I'm efficient
That wouldn't work in my program....only 70% of the material from exams are on the PPT, the rest is from the reading. I've found that in HS and even to some extent in my pre-reqs, the teacher covered everything that was in the reading. I have NOT found that to be true in nursing school. The Prof's cover part of what is in the reading, but we're responsible for everything in the reading.
I haven't found any way around just reading everything that I'm assigned. I've got a 4.0 to show for it.....but it is very time intensive.
Prioritizing your reading and reading for comprehension AND efficiency is probably the best way to go. One could quite possibly read every last word for reading's sake, but given the workload and the time to complete it for most programs, the time ends up being wasted primarily because the majority of the information isn't retained. It's probably more important to read for retention, than to read for its own sake.
This is especially important if you have other significant commitments/priorities outside of school, like children, marriage, care for parents or grandparents, work, etc. If you have nothing in your life to take time away from reading, then I suppose there's no reason not to...But that isn't the reality for a significant portion of nursing students.
I don't do any reading until after lecture. All of my instructor use Pps for class. I print those, skim over them the night before, and take notes during. After studying that, I read the specific topics that I don't have a great grasp on. The other 90 pages? I flip through and skim it super fast. If at all. Pps and NCLEX review book - that's my magic combo for nursing school goodness.
Karen
79 Posts
Look how your text is organized. There might be 4 chapters on Cardiac with the first being patho. Most people read chapters in order but a lot of times the Nursing Care is in the later chapters. Start with those and look back to the patho and diagnostic tests info as it comes up in the nursing care. It will be more meaningful then and if you run out of time and only know the patho and diagnostics you won't do well on an exam that will be focused on nursing care.