Beginning a 4 year nursing program in the fall of 2012...any advice??

Study.

Congratulations on getting accepted! My advice is to treat each of your classes, no matter how "non-nursing" it seems, as a nursing class. Obviously actual nursing classes are going to be on a different level of difficulty, but regard each class as being important to really understand for the field you are entering. When I get exams back and I see questions I got wrong, I remind myself that in my future, I won't be able to say, "Oh I knew that one! What a dumb mistake!" I know it sounds drastic and extreme, but I think to myself, a patient could die because of a dumb mistake. So I make it a point to know the material (especially these sciences) inside and out and understand them to the best of my ability, and not just memorize the material for the next exam. When I study for A&P I talk through the notes, I visualize the material and how it is happening, and always ask why? While A&P is really a lot of memorization, it would be a good habit to get into to really attempt to understand the physiology aspect of it, which is the how and why it works. Hopefully that all made sense, and hopefully my study habits will help me when I start my nursing classes in May!

I'll be taking A&P 1 and it's lab this Summer, I wanted to get a head start on my reading so I bought the book Anatomy & Physiology for Dummies. GREAT book. I recommend it for anyone taking A&P.

Learn A&P very well so that you know what the parts are called and how the body systems work. It will never go away. You need to know it very well to do well in the nursing classes, is my opinion. Also, I found A&P and the nursing classes similar in that both have a lot of reading and a lot of just plain old rote memorization, and were tedious to learn. (Anything that they suggest you make flash cars for, or go over and over and over, I define as rote memorization.) I kind of think if you really don't like learning A&P and find it tedious and not fascinating, that you will find nursing equally, um, boring, actually.

There's a saying that all nursing is psych nursing. Piaget, Maslow's heirarchy of needs, Freud, Erikson, the theories of development: All of them, you will be asked over and over to use and apply in your nursing courses. Learn 'em now, to save effort down the road.

Things someone needed to tell me...

Don't freak out.

Figure out your learning style (if you haven't already). Visual? Auditory? I took one of those assessments mid-semester and it really helped me to study more efficiently.

Don't forget that you have a life outside of classes.

Ask lots of questions.

Drink plenty of fluids.

Sleep.

Study hard.