Feeling completely overwhelmed by first days of Nursing School, please help

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Hi, I started nursing school this month and I have information overload. I don't know how to focus for my first test (next Monday). I go through the objectives, key concepts, charts and recordings as much as I can; but it is impossible to go over the entire 15 chapters and everything else I have to do for lab. It feels as if I might be missing important information because I can't read the whole thing. I'm also a visual learner and I usually study with power points but we are only getting the outlines and this is really affecting me. Regarding practice, I've been taking some fundamentals of Nursing questions, but I get discourage when I see I am failing lots of them. I guess I am not used to think this way. Those questions are so tricky! I am fairly a good student and I've never felt this way before. I'm most of the time ahead of the game and now I am feeling that I'm lagging behind. Any advise is greatly appreciated it :)

I registered my book in Evolve, and I'll be trying to practice as much as I can. Thanks for the advice :)

Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.

Trust me when I say that you get use to it. Nursing school isn't so much difficult as it is time consuming. The amount of material you learn in such a short amount of time is massive.

DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Review everything you learned the day you learned it, even if it is only for 45 minutes. Those forty-five minutes will add up, I promise! Also see the teaching assistant if your school has one and study in groups!

@ jasmin_sunset

i'd buy an nclex book, if you haven't one already. look over the information in relation to what you are studying and break it down, also practice the questions. you can also purchase a book from amazon or ebay called prentice hall reviews & rationales: nursing fundamentals (2nd edition) that also may help you. focus on adpie and abcs. alot of nursing test questions focus around the nursing process. nursing texts are huge and overwhelming. it is very easy to get lost in the material because there is so much of it. yes, the textbooks are informative and one should read the information required. but, studying for nursing exams is a different process. with critical thinking skills, one must know the "side information" to apply it to the scenario-type questions. meaning: know your labs, drugs, assessments, interventions, patient teaching etc. questions may be more like on what you would do, and not necessarily on what you know, if that makes sense. with nursing exams, there is often more than one right answer. the key is to picking that best answer for that question. one can't just flat out memorize information for these types of scenario type questions. one needs to know the material related to said question to be able to follow it through.

good luck. :)

I think you may be trying to be too comprehensive in your studying. I will tell you the strategy that devised as I went along in nursing school.

The first couple of semesters, I tried WAY too hard. I couldn't get higher than a (low) B and I had no idea why. I found out I needed to narrow my focus to what the instructor was teaching instead of every little detail in my 50 pound book.

By the fourth semester, I had figured out a very good system that worked really well for me and I finally made straight A's.

First, I recorded the lectures and took notes in class. Second, I reviewed the lecture at 2x speed (sometimes twice) and highlighted my notes. Third, if there was something I didn't understand, I would read about it in the book. If I still didn't understand, then I would hit Google until I was confident about the topic.

When I was studying for tests, I would start studying a week or two ahead. I would make notecards for facts (Ex: drugs, ABCs, Erikson, vocabulary, labs and normal ranges). I made tables for different diseases and anything that needed comparisons. The day/night before the tests, I would read over the handouts and my self-made study materials and further investigate anything that I was fuzzy on. The morning of the test, I skimmed over the handouts and reviewed facts to make sure they were fresh in my brain for the test.

I know this sounds like a lot of work, but it really didn't take very long. I probably spent 6 hours studying on a regular week, 20 hours on a test week.

My learning style is a mix of visual, hands-on, and auditory, with auditory being dominant. If you are primarily a visual learner, then you could probably leave out reviewing the lectures. If you are primarily hands-on, you could probably go to the lab and use the models, or make charts or crafts to help you. Just make sure you tailor your study program to fit how you learn.

Wow, that was a long post! I hope it helped you some!!

1 Votes

Thank you all for your answers! It's awesome to see that there are people who care about helping me succeed. On my first test, I got an 80, then I improved a little and got an 87. Now, I am back to the 80. I felt so sad because this time I used all my Spring break to prepare for the test and hoped to get an A; but the opposite happened and my grade dropped a little more. Now I have a C in the course, and getting a B in Nursing I is going to be very hard. I haven't done any better than that 87, so getting an 89 on the last test and an 89 in the final seems almost imposible to me. What frustrates me the most is that I had straight A's in all my previous courses at my college (about 14 classes). I was an A student and now I am barely passing (C= 77). I am really scared about the final because it's going to be like the Hesi Case Studies in Evolve and I only get 70's on those, even when I have been allowed to use my book to answer and with unlimited time. I don't know what is wrong with me. I record and listen to the lectures over and over. I highlight the book. I write notes on my classess. I read the key concepts, vocabulary, and all boxes in the book. I take test questions of the Fundamentals of Success book and read the rationals. One of the bad habits I have, is getting the right answer and changing it for the wrong one. I changed like 5 of those on last test and every time I tell myself I am not going to do it again, but when the test comes, I feel like my answeres might be wrong and change them. It's so frustrating :(

Everyone has their own way. I do not read the text much. I will read through the main topics that were presented in class and then use the text mainly as reference when I dont understand something. I prefer to use NCLEX study guides, the saunders one is really good. They give a more concise outline of the information you need to know. Then if I have time I will try and read more from the text, which is pretty rare. Take all the nclex type quizes/questions you can and read the rationales.

My 2cents. Good Luck.

Specializes in PICU.

If you are looking up answers and still getting questions wrong, then it tell me that it isn't a study problem, it's a test taking issue. It can take a while to get used to NCLEX style questions. There are generally 2 right answers and you have to figure out which answer is "more" right. Depending on what you're used to for exams this can be really difficult. Go in and sit down with your instructor and have them go over all of the questions you missed on the last exam, so you can understand where you went wrong in your analysis of the question. Also, does your school have an academic resource center that can help you with test taking? I think it is really sad that our secondary schools don't spend more time teaching how to take an exam. Just knowing the content doesn't mean you can get the questions answered correctly. I agree, the Saunder's NCLEX review book is a good idea, because it will not only give you the nice outlines of the content, but doing the practice questions and reading the rationals should help you a ton. It was the only thing I used for my Adult II class, I never opened our textbook and I finished the class with a 96, it's a good book:)

Thank you both for your answers. I definitely have a problem with test taking. I discussed my questions with the teacher and listened to her rationales. I am going to check to see if I can find some help to learn how to answer those questions.

I highly recommend Test Success and Fundamentals Success books. Once you figure out what the test question is really asking it will be easier on your exams. Fundamentals Success deals directly with the content you are taking in your first semester and you can take practice tests based directly on the unit you are studying in class.

You probably won't be an A student in nursing and that should be OK, because all you need to do is have the grades to pass your classes and get your license, no one really cares if you got a 97 or a 79 when you are at their bedside, only that you passed and are a good nurse in practice.

Thanks! I purchased the book "Fundamentals of Success"

By the way, thank you all for the feedback. I was able to get a B in nursing 1 and I am doing much better in nursing 2. I will be puti

ng in practice the advice.

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