Help! Best nursing student studying approach

scrub_704 · Oct 4, 2015

I am a nursing student slated to graduate in April. Nursing exams can be infuriating for students who are clinically proficient, and nursing programs tend to think that there is more overlap between course/exam content & boards than there really is.

Many nursing students tend to be alpha and type-a, who have never really been challenged by anything academic. This is a challenge in itself; anyone who tells you that nursing school "is a breeze" doesn't know what they are talking about. A lot of nursing classes ask that you "know everything"; you aren't going to ever do this, and the sooner you figure this out, the better off you'll be. (In real working life, you learn nursing information and what is significant by looking things up and seeing the same issues over and over again in your specialty. And nursing professors tend to try to inculcate 30 years of clinical knowledge into a semester.)

Tips I've found to be successful:

Take notes in class on a paper right next to the lecture slides; no matter what the prof says, read the book AFTER and take notes on what is in the book, if possible, on the same paper. Then when it is time to study for the exam, read through the slides, lecture notes and book notes with a highlighter. Highlight what you think to be important--a lot of times, the same information keeps coming up. Then review your highlighted information.

Get a study group made of individuals found to be reliable and where everyone is a team player. This will help to break down material and assignments in a way that is more manageable, but as far as exams go, it is true that everyone in the group will have different skills and strengths; by talking about content before an exam, a lot of understanding can be refined. This brings up the point that people who are most successful in my program have a group of students to count on, a lot of times a clinical group. People who have isolated themselves because they feel like they're smarter than everyone don't necessarily do that well, and mostly wondered what has happened.

Many people use apps like quizlet that they've tailored with specific content and then review that multiple times before an exam.

A HUGE part of nursing exams is the ability to recognize the correct answer, though you don't necessarily "know" what it is. Sometimes, this is recognizing wrong answers. It is also important to be able to say "I really am not going to spend time learning lab values at this point" or whatever, or count on getting the select all that apply questions correct. Throughout the program, you will want to focus on assessment skills, med calcs, stuff like that. You aren't going to remember every drug you learn in pharm, or every pathophys process you learn about.

Don't be afraid to ask the professor what you are missing, and use office hours to review exams, etc. Adopt the attitude of not making the same mistake twice. Be bold and ask the professor how to be successful in their class, for an exam review, for the depth that you will have to understand about a concept. The worse the professor can do is to not share, and then you are where you were to begin with.

The more nursing exams that one takes, the better they get. It can be a frustrating process, but unchanged answers and first impulses tend to fare better than overanalysis, and some of getting through nursing exams is to answer exactly what they are asking, no more & no less.

Success in nursing school comes from nothing but hard work, and nursing school only gets more difficult, so maintain the attitude of being in for the long haul.

I hope this helps! Good luck!!

Bee2015 · Oct 4, 2015

Thanks so much for your lengthy and thoughtful response scrub_704 ! It is extremely appreciated...