Hardest class in nursing school

[Beldar_the_Cenobite]

What was THE hardest class you've ever taken in nursing school. Some people tell me "med surge", some say "pathophysiology was the hardest", some say "OB", some say "pediatrics"...

Is there one that tries and weeds out students the most?

What was your hardest nursing class you've EVER taken. Is there one that reminds you of that everyday?

[JJL618, RN]

So the state of Alabama changed the curriculum for community colleges. Here are how the classes are labeled now. Can someone tell me what all these entail? The same stuff mentioned here just called differently?

Fundamental Concepts of Nursing

Nursing Concepts I

Nursing Concepts II

Advanced Nursing Concepts

Advanced Evidence Bases Climical Reasoning

[Henserson79]

For me it has to be Pharmacology and by some distance as well. Too much stuff you got to remember. Real test for your memory

[Beldar_the_Cenobite, CNA]

pixierose said:

I don't think any one nursing class "weeds" out students at all -- those classes are typically the prerequisites imho that "weed" one out.

I think the first class was a challenge only because of the culture shock of it all. However, as for other classes, it seems to be student-specific. Maternity-newborn bored me to tears, and was also shorter, so this was a tougher class *for me.* Some classmates thought Peds was tougher because they didn't like working with children; I loved it. I loved my med-surgical classes/rotation, but the class the year before loathed it because of the professor (who resigned before I got there). So, you'll hear "some say ..." a ton.

Atomic, your posts appear almost to try to psych yourself out of nursing?

Would you, admins, or anybody on AN agree with this poster?

[LessValuableNinja]

I definitely believe that you should not snowboard on the cardiac telemetry unit.

[fustudent610, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Med surg II. We lost 3 people and they're smart people. I feel part of it was due to the professors's ambiguity on some topics, but the rest of us made it so it was possible.

[tbjenkins2007, BSN]

I am graduating in march, and I have also had to retake 2 classes, in doing this I was able to see what was a typical struggle for most students.

None of the courses I took were because of the content. It was due to the sporadic work load, on top of taking care of my two children, while trying to work a PRN job as a CNA. The one that I struggled with the most, however, was Med/Surg II, which is more of the advanced/critical/emergency style nursing class. The reason I struggled was because I was in class 2 full days (8 hour days) plus had 2 4 hour simulation labs, and had 2 12 hour shifts of clinical. So, literally 48 hours of "school related contact time" and that was not including study time. My school did not allow us to "sign up" for any classes, our schedules were presented to us 2 weeks before the quarter started.

Classes that the majority of my cohort struggled with, and I watched many fail out over were Pediatrics, obstetrical nursing, and the dosage calculation portion of Pharmacology, all of those courses I wizzed through with As. My school required us to take a dosage calculation test every quarter, and we were not allowed to miss one. If we did, we had to do a remediation, followed by a hand written second test. If we did not get a 100 the second time, we failed.

All classes had to have a Test/Quiz score of 78% or better to pass, any other course work was calculated after that.

The advice I have for you is to do as many NCLEX questions as possible-and not just read the rationales but keep some sort of journal about why you missed the content. Saunder's NCLEX review has a program through EVOLVE that comes with the book with something like 5000 NCLEX questions, with study mode, assessment mode, and review mode to help you gauge your studying. dosage calculation is rough for some. Especially if you are not big on algebra. My school taught Dimensional Analysis, however, I could only understand the math in ratio proportion, because all dosage calc is pretty much some form of conversion.

And i also agree with others who posted here before. Microbiology was by far the hardest class I have ever taken, nursing school isn't as much "hard" as it is demanding, rigorous, intimidating. you will never be more tired in your life. And I have had 2 babies...

[NJ2008]

The prerequisite science classes.

[CarolinaRN1111]

My most difficult class, and the hardest for my classmates, was fourth semester Med/Surg - Critical Care. We started the semester with 83 students and lost 38 by the end of finals. It was the beginning of Prioritization and Management that took most out. The school only let six repeat and there are quite a few who still haven't gotten back in and that was December 2015. We had 38 left after fifth semester to graduate. It was brutal, but studying with the UWorld app helped me and quite a few others make it through the last two semesters with no problem.

[Siciliangirl]

I think it's different for everyone. I think it also depends on the teacher and on your learning style. I had to take anatomy twice because I took it for LPN, then I went into the RN program 8 years later and my credits for that class had expired. The second time I took it, I found it to be very very difficult even though I love anatomy. I thought the way I was taught was harder and then the tests didn't seem to reflect what we had gone over very well. As far as IN the nursing program, I always have trouble with the neuro system personally, as far as classes. I don't know why. Also pharmacology was difficult just because it's a lot to learn. As far as clinicals, I thought cardiology was the most challenging and rewarding just because my teacher was so good. It was the last clinical in the program and she really wanted to make sure we knew our meds before giving them and everything. Some of the other clinical teachers were a little more laid back.

[Registered Nurse88]

I would have to say OB/Peds. The amount of info is ridiculous and it didn't help any that my professor was no help what so ever, besides telling us to go read, and her notes were worthless....smh. I would study for hours a day and still fail exams.....they were THAT HARD!!!! By the grace of God I passed by the skin of my teeth and was so relieved. But good luck to you tho. Hopefully your professor is a better teacher than mine was...lol:)

[Registered Nurse88]

Pediatric was hell for me to. I think a course is only as difficult as a professor makes it to be honest

[PharmAuthor]

Pharmacology.