Advice before starting 1st semester

Trust in Jesus, RN · Dec 1, 2017

You can try to prepare yourself for nursing school, but it's probably not going to make a big difference (assuming you still remember the basics of your pre-reqs). It's not really the content in nursing school that makes it hard. It's the amount of content you have to learn in a very short time period. Nursing school take a lot of time out of your life and definitely requires time management (this is a good habit to work on). If you try to start studying early on you're going to be more tired when you actually start school. That's why everyone will tell you to relax before nursing school starts. Unless you have the material that your school specifically wants you to review/study ahead of time, just go ahead and let yourself relax and spend time with your family and friends. Find some easy recipes for lunches/dinners that you can make while in school.

Nursing school will be here before you know it. Don't wear yourself out before you even begin. Congratulations on your acceptance to nursing school!

AngelKissed857, BSN, RN · Dec 2, 2017

As a recent grad, here's my advice-

1. Clean house, ruthlessly purge and organize NOW. Then when in the middle of your 2nd semester, and your house is an absolute wreck, there's less to deal with. Seriously.

2. Do every single tiny little thing you need to handle before starting school- make your mammoth appt or get your dog's rabies shot. You won't have much time to call your own once you begin.

3. Buy UWorld before Christmas break. It is never too early to prep for NCLEX, but even m ok the, doing the questions and READING THE RATION AS LS help you get the material of nursing school done. I used to do a couple questions standing in line at Starbucks, waiting in line as anywhere, and during all breaks, I'd try to do 75 questions a day. Yeah I'm an overachiever, but I think that's true of a lot of nurses.

4. If you're not an older student, you might not have a lot of experience/comfort talking to the elderly. And those are going to be the primary population you deal with, especially in school. Start learning now. This was huge for many of my fellow students! Wherever you go, try starting conversations with the elderly. It's not hard, most don't bite. A compliment on a shirt, asking how to cook a vegetable in their shopping cart, etc. will all give you more confidence.

5. If you are super motivated, buy your pathophysiology book now, an older version, used is ok too- or rent from Amazon, and start reading, doing all the quiz questions, and look up all the phrases or words you don't know.

6. Plan and book a vacation for your summer break-in you need something to look forward to.

7. Join your school's nursing club, you are probably eligible just by virtue of being a student. You'll learn a lot about how your program works, what different instructors are like, nursing school hacks, don't speak.

8. Start volunteering now. If you know what hospital your school does most of its med dig clinicals at, volunteer on the med-surh floor now. You'll get comfortable with that environment, if you are a known and liked volunteer, the nurses might hate you less as a student, and you'll know where things are, which will save you a LOT of time as a student- and make you very popular with other students!

9. Buy an awesome planner, with LOTS of room, erasable colored pens (they're AMAZING!), enter in every personal thing in pink. Then save your other colors for your schedule. I always did green for tests (green means going forward!), red for due dates for assignments, etc. You need to be super organized!

10. Pat yourself on the back- you got into nursing school- hooray! Oh crap! Lol!

missnursingstudent19 · Dec 3, 2017

I'm finishing my first semester next week. I didn't study anything before the semester actually started because I didn't want to get burned out before the semester even started. I just bought all the supplies I would need, got my doctor's appointments out of the way, and basically made sure I would have as little to worry about during the semester as possible. One thing I did was to get all the little assignments that were quick and easy to do out of the way as soon as possible. I knew if I put them off until the last minute I might forget about them, and it gave me more time to focus on the lengthier more difficult stuff like studying for exams. One thing I wish I had known is that it is completely ok to feel like you have no idea what you're doing - especially in clinicals. Just ask lots of questions - no question is too dumb. Don't be afraid to ask your professors for any help you need, all the ones I had are great, and they are more than happy to help students in any way they can. I also wish I had practiced skills with classmates more than I did because the more you practice the more comfortable you will get.