I've been lurking on this site for a few months now and finally decided to join becuse you guys seem to be very supportive of each other. And as someone who wants a career in nursing, i'm starting to see just how important that support system is.
I've taken all of my pre-reqs except for microbiology, which i'm taking in the fall and will then be applying for entry into the nursing program for spring 2011. I'm also taking pharmacology this fall, as it fits the criteria for the required elective and i know taking it now will be very helpful to me in the future. I'm just a bit nervous about how difficult it is, so i wanted to learn what your experiences were and hear of any advise you may have to offer. So far i've been able to do well in my science pre- reqs, i recieved an A in both A&P 1 and A&P2, mainly becuse i thoroughly enjoyed them, and was very interested in the material. I'm hoping for the same interest in microbiology lol and also pharmacology. Any advise will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.
I took pharmacology as a prereq for an ABSN program I will start this fall. It was a fully accredited online course from a community college. It was the easiest class I have ever taken- only difficulty for me was my personal scheduling- I'd read the text during my breaks at work over 3 days. Then I'd take the online exam in the middle of the night after my children/husband were asleep. There was a bit of memorization involved . . .
I was at Barnes and Noble the other week and they had pharmacology books with pre-made professional flashcards. Look into that.
I was also looking into taking Pharmacology online, but most schools have the class as a nursing course rather than a pre-requ, which means that it is NOT transferrable. Before you take the class online make sure that your school does not consider it to be a nursing class otherwise your online class will not transfer.
I was at Barnes and Noble the other week and they had pharmacology books with pre-made professional flashcards. Look into that.
I was also looking into taking Pharmacology online, but most schools have the class as a nursing course rather than a pre-requ, which means that it is NOT transferrable. Before you take the class online make sure that your school does not consider it to be a nursing class otherwise your online class will not transfer.
I found that store bought cards aren't as effective as making my own cards.
For one, they generally don't have the exact information my Prof is testing on (not enough of some info, to much of other info). Secondly, I find that I learn as much making the cards as I do running through them.
I found pharmacology exciting because it was one of those classes where you had a chance to really apply everything you've learned in A&P, micro, and patho. Our teacher told us to read each chapter 3 times, do our drug cards and we should have no problem getting the grade we want. I did that and I got the grade I wanted.
First I would read the entire chapter; word for word. The second reading, I would underline and circle important facts and write notes next to each paragraph. The third reading, I would use my highlighter and highlight key info related to my notes.
After reading 3 times each, I would answer the chapter questions and input information related to each chapter into my book of powerpoints.
After doing this, I would work on my cards. But to be honest, after all that reading, come test time, I rarely needed to use my cards.
Not hard, just required a lot of time to learn the material.
You just have to find a technique that works for you.
Have you checked out ratemyprofessors.com to see what your micro prof is going to be like? Most of the reviews are pretty bang on. All teachers aren't listed but for the most part you can find yours.
Good luck!! I take micro in the fall. I've heard it's better than A&P I&II.
There's also a site called myedu.com
It doesn't have the student feedback on the professors, but when you type in the professor's name and college, it will show what % of students received each grade. It's helpful to know if a professor doesn't give many "A"s or "B"s.
This past semester I took Pharmacology, Microbiology, and Human Growth and Development. I made an A in all three. I felt that Micro was the most difficult material to understand, but I spent more time on Pharmacology due to the sheer volume of it.
As previous posters, I also found it beneficial to make flashcards for the meds. I did mine different than most people, but it helped me memorize the info as chunks. Instead of writing the specific med on one side of the card and all the info about it on the other side, I wrote the drug class on one side of the card and wrote all the meds that belonged in that class on the other side. I also included the mechanism of action (MOA) because my professor always asked about that. He typically did not mention side effects on specific drugs, but mentioned them as a class, so I would include that info after the MOA. This method alleviated having to re-write the same info for 5 to 10 drugs that fell in the same class, with the same side effects.
Also, instead of memorizing specific drug names, I remembered them as a group when possible. For example, many ACE inhibitors end in "pril" (ex: enalapril), so when time was short, I would remember that instead of each drug that ended in "pril". This did not always work, but was helpful for many classes of drugs (many beta blockers end in "olol", the HMG-CoA drugs end in "statin", etc).
I have it right now. Six week course, two weeks left. 'A' so far, looking to keep it that way (I hope I did not just jinx myself lol), though there are only 175 total pts, so yeah...rough. The side effects will be the worst part, especially gastrointestinal because they all start having the same ones with very minor differences. It's much easier, hard as it may be to believe, to have drugs with many different side effects from each other so you can keep them straight.
It's not hard, per se, but cramming all of the drugs into my head in a very short time does make it a time-sucking class. Drugs are also a very dry, and if I'm honest, BORING subject. We talk about a disease process here and there to get the gist of why the drug does so and so and that's my favorite part, and I want to continue on and on about the diease and then realize, "damn, this isn't a med-surg class. boo."). I loved Micro for this reason (disease talk), and was utterly bored by A&P for the other (very technical, "this does this").
heather925
11 Posts
I took pharmacology as a prereq for an ABSN program I will start this fall. It was a fully accredited online course from a community college. It was the easiest class I have ever taken- only difficulty for me was my personal scheduling- I'd read the text during my breaks at work over 3 days. Then I'd take the online exam in the middle of the night after my children/husband were asleep. There was a bit of memorization involved . . .