Okay, maybe not easy.. but from what I've been hearing from pretty much everyone I talk to is: anatomy is the hardest subject you will ever take and it has to become your entire life in order for you to get a passing grade.
This worries me..
I'm just looking for some reassurance. I'm taking anatomy next semester. Is it really going to be SO hard that I will have to do nothing but anatomy for the entire semester? Is it even possible to get an A? I'm getting more and more skepticle about my abilities to succeed/get an A in this class as each day passes and next semester anatomy creeps closer and closer.
You should be studying about 1.5-2.5 hours per credit hour. So if your class is 3 hours long and meets 2 times per week you should study 9-15 hours. "For high school students, the positive line continues to climb until between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours of homework a night, after which returns diminish (Cooper, 1989; Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006)". So it does not truly matter how much she had to do per week. She could have put in 40 hours, and it would have similar results to your 20.
It's impossible to say if you are being taught everything you should be taught without actually seeing your rubric and the books you are using. If you school is accredited then you most likely are being taught the same things as everyone else.
Anatomy can be difficult, but easy to manage. I know the first time I took anatomy the teacher I had went into a lot of information, and I just felt overwhelmed. Now I'm taking anatomy and physiology one and to me it is very easy! I guess splitting the class into two separate parts makes it easier.
If you want to get an 'objective' measure, I would advise you to arrange to take a practice TEAS test. Since these tests are standardized, it would provide you with comparative information.
I believe how difficult HA&P is depends a lot on one's professor. Some will want you to know every little detail, and some will tell you specifically what to concentrate on. Luckily for me, my professor was the latter type. Most of the exam info came from the provided notes/slides. You studied/memorized those, you were golden.
It really depends on the individual and the way the information is presented and tested. My LPN level A&P was a cakewalk compared to the one that was taught at the community college that I took towards my RN program. My A&P 1 teacher was all over the map (drawings and lines squiggled on an overhead projector with no real flow of the lecture). I read the text and her tests were very easy...but the final was departmentalized-no so easy. My A&P 2 instructor had a great lecture that I got a lot out of. His tests were a lot harder but I still got an A-and did the same on the departmentalized final-which didn't leave me feeling stupid like the class before....15 years later I looked everywhere for an accredited nursing school that would take those old credits and finally found one-I'm sure I would need a refresher if I needed to know A&P at the level that was taught at my community college, but I don't feel that extreme is necessary. I have an A average and a 99.99% HESI RN Exit Exam conversion score over 15 years since I've taken A&P. I'm sure you were probably taught at least the amount needed to be successful with a nursing program.
Specializes in Oncology (Prior: Ortho-Neuro, Metabolic Surgery).
My class is not easy. The information itself is not difficult, but my professor's testing style is brutal. The exams are 80 multiple choice, which sounds like it should be easy, however our class average for each test is in the low 60s (out of 100). Each and every question is purposely written as a trick question, so unless you know the material inside and out, you will get it wrong. Many questions involve intense critical thinking and knowledge outside of the class, generally from pharmacology or other aspects of healthcare. The professor's reasoning behind testing this way are:
1. We are all going into healthcare professions, so he wants to be sure we won't kill someone.
2. This is one of the prerequisites for nursing school, and about 60% of the class is pre-nursing. Since our school does admissions based on the average GPA of the 4 prerequisite classes alone, he wants to make sure that he doesn't allow idiots to sneak into nursing school. These are his words, not mine.
3. Giving hard tests will better prepare us for the NCLEX and other healthcare licensing exams. Though people who have taken the NCLEX have told me that it wasn't nearly as crazy hard as my professor's exams.
We also have practical exams too in the lab, and those are equally brutal. He pretty much points out a feature on a model/cadaver and we have to tell all that we know about that item in an information dump. No prompting. No further questions. If we forget to say something that he was looking for, then we fail that measure on the practical.
My class is not easy. The information itself is not difficult, but my professor's testing style is brutal. The exams are 80 multiple choice, which sounds like it should be easy, however our class average for each test is in the low 60s (out of 100). Each and every question is purposely written as a trick question, so unless you know the material inside and out, you will get it wrong. Many questions involve intense critical thinking and knowledge outside of the class, generally from pharmacology or other aspects of healthcare. The professor's reasoning behind testing this way are:
1. We are all going into healthcare professions, so he wants to be sure we won't kill someone.
2. This is one of the prerequisites for nursing school, and about 60% of the class is pre-nursing. Since our school does admissions based on the average GPA of the 4 prerequisite classes alone, he wants to make sure that he doesn't allow idiots to sneak into nursing school. These are his words, not mine.
3. Giving hard tests will better prepare us for the NCLEX and other healthcare licensing exams. Though people who have taken the NCLEX have told me that it wasn't nearly as crazy hard as my professor's exams.
We also have practical exams too in the lab, and those are equally brutal. He pretty much points out a feature on a model/cadaver and we have to tell all that we know about that item in an information dump. No prompting. No further questions. If we forget to say something that he was looking for, then we fail that measure on the practical.
Wow that sounds exactly like my AP 1 professor, like spot on.
Yeah, I took A&P 2 during the summer and although it was supposed to be intensive, it was fairly simple and straightforward. The professor was very laid back type of guy and he babied us for sure. I got over 100% in the course. I'm in nursing school now and you are expected to know your body systems and how they work. Honestly, I don't remember much from A&P so now I study how the body works along with the different disease processes and nursing diagnosis. So I'm not gonna blame my A&P class. It's how much effort you put into it, regardless of the class workload or structure, that really matters. Keep studying beyond the test scores. Study the stuff with the mindset that you'll be using them in nursing school and beyond.
My A&P class was through Portage Learning online and it was pretty easy. I'm really paranoid that I'm going to forget everything before I start school though so I've been studying like crazy and making flash cards to keep my memorization up and so I can easily review systems as needed throughout school and beyond. That said, I've taken harder classes for sure (Philosophy of Religion, I'm looking at you).
I find it very challenging. Our tests are 50 multi choice, 15 t/f, a few short answer and an essay. I'm doing well in the class but applying myself to the material intensely. I have essentially no science background at all which doesn't help me though either. I've noticed that the people who are current MLTs (lab) seem to be picking up material the fastest.
In our class the content we are learning in lab doesn't match what we are learning in lecture so at times it feels like taking two classes in one. Maybe that's common though? Again, I am new to the college level sciences.
I think it's different for different people! I did well in A&P1 but not as good in A&P2. I always sucked at lecture tests for anatomy but did really well on practicals. I just do better with hands on things. And to be completely honest...I'll be graduating from nursing school in May and would be lying if I said that I remember even half of what I learned in those 2 classes. Maybe I do somewhere deep deep deep down in my subconscious [emoji51]
ICareAlot
28 Posts
You should be studying about 1.5-2.5 hours per credit hour. So if your class is 3 hours long and meets 2 times per week you should study 9-15 hours. "For high school students, the positive line continues to climb until between 90 minutes and 2.5 hours of homework a night, after which returns diminish (Cooper, 1989; Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006)". So it does not truly matter how much she had to do per week. She could have put in 40 hours, and it would have similar results to your 20.
It's impossible to say if you are being taught everything you should be taught without actually seeing your rubric and the books you are using. If you school is accredited then you most likely are being taught the same things as everyone else.