How can I prep for grad school?

allnurses Guide · Sep 17, 2013

Pull out your Bates book (or whatever physical assessment book you have) and re-read it. One if your first steps as a student NP will be learning a full physical assessment.

Also get ahold of the anatomy coloring book. It's a fun way to learn and kill some time.

PatMac10,RN, RN · Sep 18, 2013

Pull out your Bates book (or whatever physical assessment book you have) and re-read it. One if your first steps as a student NP will be learning a full physical assessment.
Also get ahold of the anatomy coloring book. It's a fun way to learn and kill some time.

I like these suggestions. Hmmm. Will do.

heartlover · Sep 18, 2013

Refresh on APA formatting and citing basics for those dreadful theory and research classes. Remind yourself how to do literature searches. Research, reading and writing papers is all I've been doing this first semester of my NP program. I know there will be more to the program but for some reason that's where my program started and I've been away from school long enough that I'm struggling to get back in the swing of writing papers and researching.

allnurses Guide · Sep 18, 2013

Refresh on APA formatting and citing basics for those dreadful theory and research classes. Remind yourself how to do literature searches. Research reading and writing papers is all I've been doing this first semester of my NP program. I know there will be more to the program but for some reason that's where my program started and I've been away from school long enough that I'm struggling to get back in the swing of writing papers and researching.[/quote']
Google Scholar's automatic APA formatting works wonders too!

lemur87 · Sep 18, 2013

Google Scholar's automatic APA formatting works wonders too!

I use this for every article!!!

heartlover · Sep 18, 2013

Google Scholar's automatic APA formatting works wonders too!

I will definitely look into this. Thanks!!!

BritFNP · Sep 19, 2013

Never too early to read/skim a NP certification review book!

OfficerRNBSN · Sep 20, 2013

Yeah, APA is huge. Nursing really digs that. Once you start using the format a lot it's pretty easy, and you'll cite more journal articles than you will anything else. You'll eventually memorize that particular format.

I'm in a psychiatric mental health NP program right now, and we're using the Bates assessment book in a particular class I'm in. I like the theory part. The hands on part...nope, lol. I really don't care anything about that level of physical assessment, but you could learn a lot. I just thought it was interesting that a guy above happened to mention that book.

In sharp contrast to the above, I recommend doing nothing. Enjoy all that free time because you won't have it later, lol. If you want to be productive take care of your other affairs. Catch up on that home maintenance you've procrastinated about, get your car checked out, and if you're not in shape then get as close to it as you can. A lot of students complain about gaining weight while in school.

No worries. You'll do fine!

Annaiya, NP · Sep 21, 2013

My advice is to get the McCance and Huether patho book and start reading. Every MSN patho class I know of uses that book. It's huge and we read almost the whole thing in one semester. It would have been great to have at least read the chapters I'm interested in before class. It is extremely dense material and it takes time to digest it all. I think the suggestion of a board review book is good too, but when you haven't even started school yet, it might feel a little too overwhelming.