best order to take pre-reqs

dtrmnd2sccd · Mar 29, 2008

i am 46 with a degree in another field and am getting ready to take all my science courses to apply for nursing school. as i have not been in school for a very long time, i am going to take them a little slow so i can hopefully do well. i need just about everything: nutrition, chem. anatomy, physiology and micro. a&p are two seperate courses. do these build on one another and if so, what should i start with? i know that i have to take certain ones before others. i was thinking about taking nutrition this summer and starting with chem. in the fall. any thoughts would be helpful.

Another mom of girls here (ages 2.5 and 4.5), 36 yrs old when I started pre-reqs a year ago. I was going to start out slow too, worried how I was going to balance it all after so many years out of school, but found that I didn't need to--all those study skills are still there, just needed to be dusted off a bit! Ended up doing 7 prereqs in 10 months, applying to NS for Jan '09. :)

I did Chem first--found it helpful to have that background in A&P I and II, but probably not necessary. I would recommend having a general BIO class before A&P, if possible. I skipped that step, and had to work really hard understanding the concepts of cellular biology (Krebs cycle, etc.) that we whipped thru in A&P.

I have friends who took A&P at the same time as Micro and really had to work hard. I took A&P first, finishing Micro now. Finding some repetition right now as we're going over the immune system reaction to pathogens (which was covered in A&P) but since the immune system is so complicated, it's not a bad thing.

So that's my :twocents: --best of luck to you!! We moms are amazing women, and can do anything we put our minds to!! :yeah:

mcs1505 · Mar 29, 2008

I did Chem and A&P 1 together. Then A&P 2. Then Nutrition. Then Micro.

I don't think it really matters as long as A&P 2 follows A&P 1. And having Micro after finishing both A&Ps would probably help too.

tinybabynurse · Mar 29, 2008

I'm taking A&P I, Micro, and Chemistry this semester and find that they have many areas that overlap...which is helpful...I think it's been an advantage to take them together. I don't think that taking any one of them before another would have made a difference. I do still have to take nutrition and my guess is that having these other classes first will help.

As someone previously stated, if you need Gen biology, you should definitely take it before A&P and Micro. There were a couple of girls in my A&P class that hadn't had Bio yet and they had to drop the class b/c it was too fast-paced for them due to not having the basic Bio knowledge.

Good luck!

CT Pixie, BSN, RN · Mar 29, 2008

You might want to check and see if any of the classes you mentioned have pre-reqs of their own.

I know for some of my pre-reqs (for example A&P, you needed to take Gen Biology AND chemistry before being allowed to take A&P). But before you could take Chem, its pre-req was a college level Algebra

Give a look at the classes pre-reqs and make sure you have taken them so you can go right into the class.

modelmama07 · Mar 29, 2008

If I were you I would do them in this order:

Nutrition- Summer

Chemistry- Fall

Then:

Anatomy (structure)

Physiology (function)

Micro

If your taking it slow I would take it in this order. I hope to be starting nursing school this fall, so I doubled up on some I have A&P II and Micro currently, its a challenge but I'm very confident that I will finish out on top, and I'm sure you will too! Good luck!

Piglet68 · Mar 30, 2008

Take a look at what the college recommends. For the school I am attending some things need to be taken before you can apply for the nursing program and they are done by sequence. Also I noted that another post stated some pre-reqs require pre-reqs of their own. At my school you can't take AP till you have taken Gen BIO and Chem and you need to take College Algebra befoer you could take Chem. Once you look into your schools requirements with an advisor you will have a better idea as to the order you should take the classes.

Jen