Failed a Nursing Course: Need Advice!

IHeartPeds87 · Apr 8, 2015

Hi Jeff.

I failed a course by one point in my first year. I had to wait 8 months to take the class again and it set my graduation date by a year.

I am on track to graduate at the end of this month.

It can be done.

My biggest advice to you is to honestly analyze why you think you failed the first time. Look at your test grades- were they all around the same grade or did you do well on most of them but "tank" one? Was it anxiety?

If it was the way you studied, I highly, highly reccomend a study group.

I also reccomend getting a hold of resources that make sense to you. There was an instructor at my school who was a very good lecturer. I understood when she taught. I did not get her as a teacher for one of my courses, but she was teaching the class. She was an extremely thorough lecturer, known to be more thorough than the other instructors and she taught in a way that made sense to me. I was able to get a hold of her lectures and used her lectures to study. Check if this is allowed at your school.

The way I studied was to record the lectures and listen to them extremely slowly and take notes at the same time on the powerpoint slides. I would have my book open to the appropriate section and highlight in the book the explanation for the topic that the teacher was talking about. I would skim (note the word skim) the rest of the section for additional information. I also had a running list of questions for things I was unsure of/didn't understand. I also made notecards only of things that were straight up memorization - mostly lab values. This was the bulk of my studying and it would take an extremely long time. I mean extremely. I could only listen to 15-20 minutes of lecture at a time with this method, because 15-20 minutes of lecture would take me about an hour with this method. Every exam of hours covered about 5 hours of lecture material, so that translates into about 20 hours per exam, which was every other week for us.

Every week I met with a study group. Our study groups were three people. We met at a dunkin donuts and would go through our powerpoint notes discussing each topic, asking each other our questions as they came up, and quizzing each other. Our sessions were informal and were adapted to the topics we were studying. Extremely useful. Every once in awhile we would vent about our clinical experiences/life as a nursing student in general and honestly I even found that part helpful for sanity purposes! One of our group members was very good about being like "okay, it's been fifteen minutes of talking we need to get back to the material guys." We adapted our methods as we went along. For example, I remember when we were studying about pancreatic/hepatic issues there were a lot of different diets we had to keep straight so we made a list just of the diets people would be on, etc. It worked very well because everyone came prepared. We had all listened to lecture slowly and skimmed the book before our session, so it worked out because we all had to be "prepared to study." Sometimes we'd look at pictures, video clips online, etc. During OB, I bought a doll to our session to help visualize different fetal positions! If we all didn't understand something/had a question on something that we all had one of us would email the professor asking for clarification. This study group was anywhere from 3-5 hours per week. So per exam, that's another 6-10 hours of studying.

I had the NCLEX made easy Q and A book. These questions were very easy but I would go through the section circling the question numbers that were applicable to the exam. I would go through and just read the q's and rationales that were applicable. This was quick, usually about an hour. I didn't always do this admittedly.

I highly reccomend asking around about instructors and finding out if the instructor tests mostly from lecture or from the book mostly. All except one instructor I had emphasized important things during lecture. I did the above study plan throughout nursing school. Every rotation it was rinse and repeat!

Good luck!

jfantacone09 · Apr 8, 2015

Thank you so much for your advice. I will take it all into consideration and figure the best route I should take in studying and preparing. When it came to my grades. I did good on all the tests but I "tanked" 1 of them and it made it so hard for me to bring my grade up to pass. After talking to people and really looking back I think I realized what contributed to me failing. I work full-time so I plan on cutting my hours back, I was too confident and cocky, I didn't get "quality" studying time, and I just simply wasn't as serious as I should be.

I know I can do this and make it through the program. I am so focused and determined and return and do well. I understand what needs to be done.

IHeartPeds87 · Apr 9, 2015

Good Luck Jeff! Good for you for being honest with yourself and trying to make a plan for future success.

nnhunter · Apr 18, 2015

You can do it Jeff!! I did the same thing too I failed my Med-Surg class by a few points so I would have had to sit out the whole year as well. What I decided was rather than sit out a whole year I am just going to start the program from the beginning again so I will not lose the material I already learned. I know what I did wrong and I am not going back down that road again :).

What really helped me was doing a lot of questions and reading the book by Caroline Porter Thomas called "How to Succeed In Nursing School" I learned some great study tips from that book. Also, if you have any negative people in your life get em out!! People will try to distract you, tell you you cannot do it, and just discourage you but if you push hard you can do it!!

Good luck :)