hi, i am currently a junior in high school but im looking into nursing.

Tparuszkiewicz · Jan 20, 2013

Look at the prerequisites for the nursing programs you want to apply to. If you are offered dual enrollment you can take some classes while in high school. Check with your school. Keep you gpa and your eye on the prize. Got to tutoring for subjects you are not so great in. :) good luck

rolltideroll · Jan 20, 2013

You say you're not very good at science. You are going to have to learn a lot of science if you're going to go into nursing. If I were you I would be making sure I had s firm grasp on the basics you learn in high school because it only gets harder in college. Take science electives (A&P, etc). If your school offers classes that double as college credit I would do that also. And see if your school has any health related clubs :)

Saysfaa · Jan 20, 2013

What others have said, except I wouldn't try the advanced classes until you've figured out how to get As in the non-AP versions of the subjects.

Science tends to be more about effective study habits than anything else.

You don't need much math for nursing as a job, actually, you don't need very advanced math for most jobs in nursing. You do need to be rock solid in the math you do need. What I wish I had learned much, much sooner is to work toward very thoroughly understanding and being able to consistently apply all of the lower levels of math rather than just getting through the class. There are a few ways to do that. One way is to watch for weak spots as you work in your current math class to know what to work on.

Another is to get a book such as Rod and Staff's eighth grade math book and do the chapter tests to find weak spots in a more systematic way. There may be other publishers that will work, at one time almost any of them would work for this purpose but I haven't kept up with the new trends in elementary/jr high education. I know this publisher still uses eighth grade to revisit all the basic things - up to starting algebra.

Once you've identified weak areas, you can fix them via Khanacademy or University of Wisconsin's basics of math program (it is free to anyone and designed for this purpose) or your public library. Our public library has a few dozen math books, many of which were written to fill gaps in understanding and/or to provide extra practice in a given areas (like fractions, for example). Even if your library doesn't have much, you should be able to get suitable books through interlibrary loan.

Of course, I am making some huge assumptions here based on why I didn't get good grades in math. If you have other reasons, then you can do the same process to them. For example, if you understand the material but miss points for not following directions or for not turning assignments in or for test anxiety..... those are all things you can do something about. For some of them (especially test anxiety) "trying harder" isn't what you need to do and can make that worse. But there are other things you can do that would help a tremendous amount.

I know all this isn't nearly as interesting as the special class you haven't been able to get into yet. It will be more useful, though, and you can get some of the excitement by exploring the field on your own.

harmandh · Jan 21, 2013

hytcmn

WordWrangler · Jan 21, 2013

The first thing I would do if I were you is rethink your ideas about math and science, especially science. The math isn't hard, but if you have a brain block going that says, "I don't like it, I'm not good at math," you won't be able to learn it effectively. Go ahead and just look at it is a challenge whose butt you can kick. When I was in high school, I did TERRIBLY in math and twenty years later, when I had to get through a college algebra class to go into nursing school, I managed to get the highest grade in the class (yes, I'm gonna brag about it. It was an awesome thing for me to realize I had spent twenty years being WRONG about my abilities.)

Try to enjoy science. There' s a LOT of it and you might enjoy it more if you really focus on it as it pertains to medicine. Read up about biology, about the development of medicines, about wound care maybe... that might help you find your hook you can hang your hat on to help you enjoy the science. Personally, I love it when someone tells me something I didn't really KNOW before and it opens up a little more understanding in my mind. That little click of a lightbulb moment is just fantastic.

Anyway, sorry to nag. I'm a mom, but frankly, I really do wish I'd figured out when I was your age how much I would have LOVED to go to nursing school and science is a GREAT way to get there. Good luck to you, girl. If you work hard, you can do it.

sofiesgrammy · Jan 21, 2013

There's a great online, free math learning resource called Kahn academy. I stunk at math, and with the help of this website, I scored a 99% in math on my nursing school entrance exam. If I can do it, you can do it! I think the site is kahnacademy.org.

As a nurse in daily practice, you will need to be very comfortable with multiplication and division and complex fractions. You will need to be comfortable converting metric to English, farenheit to celsius, etc. Know the metric system well, especially grams, milligrams and micrograms. You don't need algebra, geometry, trig or calculus for nursing, but there will be algebra and geometry questions on the nursing school entrance exam!

As for science, start with biology and work your way up to anatomy and physiology.

Chemistry is the foundation for everything, but many nursing programs don't require it. It is possible to get through with no chem, and many nurses never have to take a chem class. I had several semesters of chem, and I am glad for it. It helps my understanding of how drugs work, and it helps a lot in understanding critical care nursing, where you are dealing with acid base balance and things like that. If you can handle the chem, it's worth taking. You will need to be proficient in algebra to make it through chem.

You might see if you can volunteer at a nursing home or with Hospice in your community. Our local Hospice accepts volunteers as young as 14.

Best of luck to you!