How can you best prepare for Nursing School

[Cronin]

Greetings all,

I am about to finish all my Nursing Program prerequisites; however, there is still a year waiting period. I was wondering what I could do during that time to make the program less difficult. Would going over the Nursing books a year ahead of time be a good idea? Working as a specific health care professional (I have already worked as a CNA)? Take a class like Pharmacology? How can I be best prepared?

[TheCommuter, BSN, RN]

Moved to the General Nursing Student forum.

[pmabraham, BSN, RN]

Good day:

We had a six month waiting period in our case; I took abnormal psychology and pathophysiology. I found pathophysiology to be very helpful through the RN program (thanks to Jesus, I'm in the 4th semester currently). I took pharmacology while in the RN program; I found that class to be very helpful as well.

Thank you.

[AlmostANurse321]

Take as many of the fluff classes as you can, before you start the clinical/theory classes.

[Summer Days]

Definitely review your A&P as close to nursing school start date as possible. Sounds easy, huh, until you are thrown in the mix and say, you are going over disorders of the central nervous system and you cannot tell apart the functions of the different lobes of the brain. Hell, you cannot remember what the tubules do for the life of you. Aha, which one has three lobes, right or left lung? Sounds simple but many of us forget, myself included haha. Many of the nursing school books include a review of A&P at the start of each body system because they know we've long forgotten these stuff. Second, review college level chemistry. Understand acids, bases, pH & buffers. Understand chemistry bonds, ATP use, and Krebs cycle. In microbiology, review gram negative and gram positive microbes, know differences between bacteria, viruses, and fungi as you will encounter them throughout nursing school. I find that pharmacology is better and well retained when learned side to side with corresponding nursing school lecture. Thus, I would not advocate to learn pharm before nursing school. Some nursing schools incorporate pharm into their curriculum, others do not. So find out if your school does. All the best, cheers :0

[Cronin]

Thanks for all of the insight. I plan on reviewing A&P and taking Pharmacology.

[Cronin]

Plus, Pathophysiology

[SaltySarcasticSally, LPN, RN]

Start on NCLEX questions. You may not know the material but if your school tests with that style of questioning, practicing them is essential IMO because its a totally different way of thinking. Also take any co-reqs if you can, that was you will only have nursing core classes to take in the program.

[gere7404, BSN, RN]

Start on NCLEX questions. You may not know the material but if your school tests with that style of questioning, practicing them is essential IMO because its a totally different way of thinking. Also take any co-reqs if you can, that was you will only have nursing core classes to take in the program.

This right here. All of it.

A lot of people were taken by surprise the difference in test questions from the more objective science courses we took in prerequisites. They don't just ask you to recall a specific detail, they expect you to be able to critically think how that information can be used in relation to the scenario provided.

I took the time before my program started to knock out my baccalaureate-level corequisites so when I started the actual nursing program I didn't have anything to worry about except actual nursing classes. I ended up taking a bunch of 3-400 level psych courses so I can apply for a minor in psychology when this is all said and done.