Help with Studying Please :)

[HEsMyHealer]

Hello!

I am starting pharmacology and Socialization in a few weeks. Over the years, I have had a very hard time studying and retaining information. I have tried many things, and while I do retain some information, it was never enough to score a B on a test. I do well in assignments and projects but I can never recall the information I learned for the test. Does anyone have any advice in regards to studying and retaining information????

I am a nursing student at The College of Central Florida (Formally Central Florida Community College).

[slc1984]

I record myself going over my notes one time, put it on repeat and listen to it while I sleep and any other time I can listen to it (in the car, while cleaning). It sounds like a weird thing to do but I have a 3.8 nursing GPA so it works really well for me. Just make sure that when you record, you turn your phone off. If it rings in the middle of a recording you have just spent an hour making you have to redo the whole thing because hearing your phone ring while the recording replays will wake you up lol. It has happened to me quite a few times. Also make sure you really drive in the areas you know you are likely to forget. I will say the same thing over and over so I have to listen to it over and over.

[Lola Lou, BSN]

Hi there! I just graduated in May so I can safely say that I had my study plan perfected. Please keep in mind that what works for one person may not work for another. First off, I honestly feel that the amount of time a person puts in to studying directly influences the grades that he or she receives. I had many classmates that would always say that it was impossible to get good grades but I know for a fact that they did the bare minimum to get by and did not go above and beyond for that higher grade.

My study plan started by printing out the PowerPoint slides before each class lecture. I would then take detailed notes (write beside or on the actual ppt)during class that correlated with each slide. If I had time between classes I would go over the slides and add any additional notes that I didn't have time to write during the class because the instructor may have moved on to the next slide. Once I was home for the night I would do one of two things, I would go through the slides again and use a highlighter to mark what information is common sense or something that I understood well. This information I could then review later on but I wouldn't spend much time focusing on it. My goal was to pin point the information that was more challenging and that I would have to make an effort to understand. The more difficult information I would copy on to notecards. I would keep the information on each note card to only a few lines. I realized that if I filled one entire note card from top to bottom with writing that it was just as overwhelming to study as if I had just read it from a book. After I made my BIG pile of notes cards I would start using them as flashcards. I would bring them with me EVERYWHERE (laundry mat, gym, in between classes, etc.) so I could look at them whenever I had a free second. I would find myself not stressing the day before a test because I felt adequately prepared with all of the work that I did up to that point. Not cramming the day before a test (like many of my classmates did) allowed me to leisurely review material that I may have felt needed a little extra attention or I would just take the day to relax and refresh my brain for the test.

I understand that this is a very time consuming process. This is not something that you can start doing the day before a test. It is the most beneficial if it is a continuous process that you do after each class when the information is fresh in your mind. But, I looked at it like this...I basically started my studying the moment I started making the note cards. I would save all note cards that I had made throughout the semester and I could refer to them at the end of the semester when finals came around. After I completed the final it felt good to throw away the massive pile of note cards. I was very organized with my PowerPoints so it was also easy for me to refer back to them as well. In my opinion the key to success in nursing school is organization and dedicating time each day to working towards your goal of understanding the material and earning a good grade.

This process absolutely was the reason I was successful in completing nursing school with a high GPA and a thorough understanding of the material. It is hard to guess how much material I really did retain after graduating but I find myself pulling random/useful points of information out of my head when necessary so I must have done something right. I hope this helps you! Good luck!

[HEsMyHealer]

Thank you! These tips will be a big help :)

[barcode120x, RN, NP]

For pharmacology? I would try to stay away from memorizing every single drug. There are just SO many! I guess you could memorize the very common ones or the ones they tell you that are very important (ie. on the exam haha). What I focused on was drug classifications, what areas did they affect (respiratory, cardiac, etc), and common endings (-lol, -dipine, etc). I did both flash cards on those and went over our lecture notes/powerpoints with a study group and we would question each other.

In terms of retaining information, one of the clinical instructors had a good strategy. He told us that he has always been a super slow reader and that reading once or twice wouldn't help in retaining the info. So what he told us that he did was that he would read each chapter 4-5 times, maybe more. He said that repetition is what helped him retain the information. You can try that, but that would definitely be time consuming.