Did anyone find that their previous degree was harder that nursing school?

[Nursetobe25]

I know most programs you have to get at least a C in your courses? Is it really difficult to get a C in nursing courses?

I was an education major and we had to maintain a B in each class or we would fail and be thrown out of the program. Needless to say only a 3rd of the people passed. So I was thinking maybe if I could handle that I could handle nursing

[toomuchbaloney]

My non nursing studies were not more demanding.

Less than 20% of those starting the nursing courses at my college actually passed both the didactic and the clinical components and graduated. All of the graduates passed the NCLEX on first attempt (back in the day when it was pencil/paper/hours of time).

[random_nurse12]

I am an instructor.

Most students find that nursing courses are more demanding of their time than other courses. I don't know that it is about the difficulty, it is more the time involved. Also, testing is very different in nursing. It is not unusual for an A student to become a C student in nursing.

[emtb2rn, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

That C can mean something a little different in nursing school.

F'risnstance, in my nursing program grading went like this: 80-86=C, 87-93=B, 94-100=A. Anything below a C was a failing grade. My average at graduation was 93, so I was a B student.

[akulahawkRN, ADN, RN, EMT-P]

I graduated from a sports medicine program that was probably more rigorous than the ADN program that I just graduated from. I sports medicine program focused heavily on injury pathophysiology, sports psychology, adolescent psychology, biomechanics, therapeutic modalities, nutrition, and most heavily on physical assessment. Due to the nature of sports medicine, effectively we learn how to diagnose most sports injuries and then relay our findings to a physician, who is usually Board Certified in Sports Medicine or Orthopedics. We learned how to do physical therapy and occupational therapy as they specifically relate to athletics. Therein lies an unstated caveat: we learned how to deal with the top 5-10% of people in terms of human performance. They're usually driven to get better and will do the work without much additional prompting. It's all medical model.

All the above is for background...

I just finished a nursing program and while it was tough, it was tough in a very different way, and in some ways, much tougher. In both programs, we had to maintain a "C" average and no grades lower than a C to progress. Nursing was tougher in the amount of time required of the student. Every week, I'd put in about 15 hours in clinical. Sports med "clinical" time would be around 20 hours... but I wouldn't have to do homework/prep work for that time. That's often another 6 hours per week for prep, on top of study time generally. With nursing, we'd learn the material in a somewhat modular format. That made things easier, but the sports med stuff, we'd be studying 3 or 4 different subjects all the time. This definitely did make a big difference in being able to transition to nursing because I learned how to study very efficiently.

The toughest part of nursing school is learning to "think like a nurse." I'm pretty well versed in critical thinking and the like... but all my training prior to this has been along the medical model. I want to determine what broke because once I know that, I know how to fix it or who to refer to make that happen. I wasn't at all prepared to think the other way... and that was the really tough part. I suspect that's the most difficult part for most people. I had to learn that there's no good way to translate medical and nursing diagnoses.

Nursing is tough for a couple reasons: most people aren't building upon knowledge about healthcare to begin with, they're building a new set of knowledge and they're being presented with a lot of information over a relatively short period of time and being expected to think in a way that's probably quite foreign to them.

It is also very common for "A" students to become "B" students, or even "C" students during a nursing program. It doesn't always happen, but it is very common. It happens for those above reasons... and even with my background, it happened to me. My post-grad GPA was a 4.0, covering the few prereq's I didn't have already. I went from that 4.0 to a 3.3 GPA. Perhaps if I'd understood NCLEX-style questions earlier, I might have gotten higher grades...

Even so, as hard as the hardest program I've ever attended was, the NCLEX was the single most difficult exam I've ever had to date!

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

I have a Bachelor's in Education. I thought my nursing program was MUCH more difficult. That doesn't mean you will agree, though.

On a positive note, I got a 3.67 GPA for my Education degree, and made a 4.0 in my BSN program. So it's possible to still do well even though one might feel it is more difficult. :)

[roser13, ASN, RN]

"Difficult." "Harder." So subjective. How can anyone tell anyone else (whose aptitude, native intelligence, study skills and background are unknown quantities) what is difficult?

[anon456, BSN, RN]

My ADN was probably the hardest schooling I have ever done. I have a previous degree also. It really takes a huge amount of effort, but it is possible if you put in the time and work hard.

[Dranger]

All the girls who flunked pre-nursing went education or psych. Literally.

One I know went into pre-med and was torched in one semester...

[Mom2boysRN]

I was a teacher before I was a nurse. My nursing program was much harder than the program I went through for teaching MUCH harder.

[applewhitern, BSN, RN]

Nursing is a different animal altogether. You have to learn to think differently. I had an accounting degree prior to nursing; that was hard! But the grading was fair. In my nursing classes, the grading scale was much stricter. An 83 was a big, red F. We had to make 84 or above on everything, and on nursing math/medication tests, you could only miss one, period. Out of my class of 66, only 22 of us made it to graduation.

[Code Red]

I am an instructor.

Most students find that nursing courses are more demanding of their time than other courses. I don't know that it is about the difficulty, it is more the time involved. Also, testing is very different in nursing. It is not unusual for an A student to become a C student in nursing.

So what if your a c student... omg!! That means I'll be a G student in nursing school...omg I am soooo afraid!