Eight essential tools and tips for incoming nursing students

APA format, for one, was a whole new concept and I doubt I am alone when I say I practically clicked every toolbar option in Microsoft Word before I figured out how to properly insert headers and page numbers...

Nursing students have to develop ways of doing things that best accommodate their work style. Procrastinator? Sorry but that habit is hard to kick. My advice to you is to embrace it--late yet strongly focused work sessions can get you through nursing school for the most part. However, no matter what your work style is, there are eight essential tips and tools that can help streamline your efforts. As a senior nursing student, I can only wish that I had stumbled upon these sooner.

Essential Studying Tools

1. Online nursing care plan constructor.

Use this online tool to help guide you in care plan construction. Although some are outdated, the interventions for each nursing diagnoses are often backed up with nursing research. These are useful whenever teachers ask for evidence based rationales to nursing interventions.

2. Ottobib.

This is a wonderful time saving tool that creates reference citations using only the ISBN's of textbooks. Bookmark this for sure!

3. Use a hand-held nursing database whether it is Lexicomp, Unbound, or Skyscape.

These programs are often expensive (google jailbreak), however, I can not even begin to explain how helpful these are in clinical situations.

4. Use Microsoft Word's Notebook option.

This program allows easier outline creation and is amazing when taking quick notes during lectures. There is even an audio note option that records audio as you type. When you review the document later there will be little audio icons that bring up audio that was recorded a few seconds before your notes!

5. Citation Machine, like Ottobib

This is another quick and free online service for reference pages and citations. Simply plug in the data and Citation Machine organizes everything according to what you are using whether it is APA 5th or 6th edition, MLA, Turabian, or Chicago.

In addition to electronic tools, there are tips and ways of doing things that almost guarantee success. As a student, it is our responsibility to find and develop our own personal way of doing things. To have made it this far you have proven that you have experience in studying (or stuDYING for those who are inclined to cramming), writing papers, and passing projects and exams. What did you learn along the way about your educational habits? What educational techniques have you tried that have proven useful and you continue to do up to now? Also, look into the habits that haven't helped and instead have proven to make things harder. Looking at ones faults can be eye opening and lead to change. For me, I have found a few habits or ways of doing things that I just could not function without today.

Essential Studying Tips

1. Read with a purpose.

Rather than reading textbooks just to say you've read it, read it to understand. A simple trick you can try is to go over the reading or lecture objectives (my professors provided these) and keep these in mind while reading the chapters. The goal is to meet the objectives by singling out important text while ignoring the unnecessary side information that litters textbooks nowadays. Ask yourself what is important while reading and you'll soon find that you remember the important concepts come test day.

2. Study in the same location as much as possible.

For me I couldn't study at home as my TV and radio often proved heavy distractions. A messy house also meant for unorganized thoughts and these were always counterproductive. To focus on school I often ran away to the third floor of my school's library. I've had and continue to have long and highly productive work and study sessions in that little nook of the library. Something about that familiar location seems to get me ready to do work. Try finding your place today. Personalize it (I do not condone destruction of school property) and make it yours for years to come.

3. If your goal is to read bring as few distractions as possible

Leave the laptop and iPod at home. If you bring your phone, silence it. If you must bring your laptop, don't bring your charger. This guarantees against long youtube and facebook sessions that steal time away from studying. If you don't bring your charger your laptop dies that much faster and you are left to study that much longer.

Obviously these tools and tips aren't meant for everybody. Learning to be a good student is a lifelong task and everybody is different. I hope some of you can adopt some of my tips that I've learned along the way and I hope many of you will share your own tools and tips with me! As for now, try these out and let me know how they work!