Going to Nursing School - HELP!

Considering the wait lists, I chose the first school that accepted me, which I sort of regret, because it is also the hardest school in my area, and they give very few tests for some reason - 3 tests per semester the first year, 2 tests per semester the second year ( and that includes the final) so there is very little room for weakness in any area. Every test is the be all end all, and with so much riding on them, it's been more stressful than normal. Nursing school is hard and stressful as it is!! If I had known better, I'd have done more research on the issue of amount of tests, for sure, as I see more tests as a learning experience. And, there are statistics that prove that more tests on smaller amounts of info is a better way to learn and retain what you learn. Imagine one test on 20+ twenty to thirty page chapters - it may be only 50 questions, but that is A LOT of material to have under your belt for one exam - !! I also would have picked a school that provided more clinical time, instead of the 1 day a week that we get...I feel like my school is all about the textbook, and that is not all that nursing is. Other schools in my area are not run the same way as the one I am in. Our school also has a very high fail rate. We started out with around 120 students and now going into the 4th semester, we have about 35 left (though there are 80 students in all, as we have LPN to RN students that have joined us, and failures from previous classes that are repeating their semesters)

As far as what impacted me the most, that is hard to say. Maybe clinical, especially med surg at the hospital I spent the most time at. The nurses were overworked and miserable. Many are nasty with us, and saw us there as someone to push all the crap work on. I had Saturday clinicals, and I really believe that the nurses aids would call out on saturdays just because they knew we students were there, and it seems their manager didn't care. Some days there were NO aids...and, since this med-surg floor was 99% nursing home patients, the entire day was sometimes taken up doing morning care or cleaning up incontinent patients, or walking them to the bathroom etc etc. It left very little time for anything else. There were days that I barely had time to even look at the patient's chart!!

Anyway, not to discourage you because my experience has been less than stellar...there are also good things about our program. Our teachers are great, and I sure as heck am learning to take tests well, and pass the first time, which is probably preparing me well for boards. So what if the stress has taken 20 years off my life so far? What's 20 little years in the overall scheme of things, right??

Good luck to you!