What helped you in your first year / semester of nursing school?

Nursing Students General Students

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I start my first semester this fall woo! So excited for this, I was just wondering in general what had helped you your first semester? What did you expect? what you didnt expect? Any advice or tips? Did you have fun or just any general discussion about your first semester. :D

I am also going into nursing this fall. I am excited about it however. I can't give you any advises but good luck!

Specializes in Oncology/hematology.

Nothing helped me. My first year sucked.... I got the hang of it in my 3rd year of my BSN.

Definitely made some close friends, was as organized as I could possibly be and worked very hard in the beginning so I was able to relax towards the end until finals.

A lot of great advice here. Here are my thoughts, a lot of which has been said here:

Stay organized. Get a calendar and right down all of your assignments, tests, papers, projects mad so on.

Do your reading. Just because it wasn't covered in class it may still be on the test.

Sleep. I don't believe in pulling an all nighter. It gets to the point you won't retain any information and you won't be able to focus on the test. I work 45-50 hours a week and still have time to study.

Learn to manage your time. I work, then study, then go home for the evening.

Buy a good. NCLEX study guide. It will be your best friend!

As for study groups, it's a personal preference. The girls I started out studying with never came prepared, they just wanted me to teach. While that is good studying, I couldn't get my questions answered from them. I now study alone and have a few people that I will call, or they will call me, if there are questions.

Have fun! Nursing school can actually be fun. I've already made some great friends!

Thanks again everyone!

The best piece of advice I can give that I don't think I've seen mentioned on here is pay attention to e-mails and online announcements from your instructors/department. From the start the instructors in my program were very clear about using e-mail and online class related message boards for communicating and making last minute changes and announcements. Saying "I don't know, I never checked" is not acceptable. It's on us to be checking, sometimes a couple times a day, to see if there's something important we need to know.

I don't know if all programs are like this, but there's a good chance at least the email part will be true. Stay on top of checking those type of things and it will help you stay on top of everything else. There's very little excuse for not at least trying to keep up with when your instructors decide to deviate from the syllabus or whatever else they might throw your way.

Good luck!

Alright, here we go!

1- Remember to breathe. I don't know how many times I freaked out and cried over the amount of things that kept piling up. I remember I had to encourage myself multiple times.

2- Study group- Find hardworking and dedicated people and make a study group. I found that if you find people with the same intelligence level as you, or higher, you'll end up debating while studying and that is the best tool while studying. You can prove your point, even show 'evidence' in the text book or class notes. I highly recommend this!

3- 'Repaso' before test- In Puerto Rico, they use the word 'repaso' for literally everything. It's a basic review. You make your own, and write anything and everything you want on it. Including keywords, processes, answers, tidbits, anything! You do this on either a word document, or if you're as visual as me, computer paper. Then if you and your study group are really close knit like I had, you can share and even divide parts of the chapters. (Lord knows that there are LOTS of chapters. Especially Biology!)

4- Don't slack off in labs- You may think that labs are super easy, but those babies can make or break you. Over here we only had 2 partial tests and the individual labs including lab write ups. And that's it. If you didn't understand it, then you'd be extremely screwed.

5- Enjoy the little things- Cancelled class, test moved to another date, professor doesn't feel like teaching, holidays, and weekends are definitely going to be your best friends. I'm not saying slack off the entire day, but take 2-3 hours of studying, then take that day and make it yours! Be collegy! But I don't recommend getting crazy..

6- Calendar/planner/phone- Use anything you can to plan it out! You will need it! If not, random things are going to pop out of nowhere and they'll freak you out.

7- Study at least 1 week before an exam- I should probably take my own advice.. :sniff:

8- Do not be afraid to ask questions- Professors can either be your best friends or your worst enemies when it comes to classes. I'm not saying suck up to them, but follow these rules. Be nice, courteous, on time to class, participate, ask questions, and I swear that they will help you out if you ever need that tiny tiny little point to curve your grade.

9- Essential supplies- Pens, notebooks, plastic cover sheet things, highlighters, sticky notes (like a billion), computer paper (I used 6 reams this year...), printer, binders, pencils, erasers, and anything creative you want to invest in!

10- Keep all material that you know you'll need later- Like 2nd semester of biology. Which consists of the human body! Psychology notes, and anything you may feel you need for future courses. Buy a big industrial size binder and just keep filling that baby up with good knowledge and reference material that you will use later on!

11- Be yourself and have FUN!- This is your time. This is what career you chose. Have fun :)

I just finished my first year, and I know that there are a LOT more stuff that I forgot. But basically, enjoy yourself and cherish this beautiful journey that you are about to experience. I wish you all the best of luck and best wishes too!

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