How I survived nursing school and how you can too!

erint330 · Oct 8, 2016

Being a nursing student is one of the hardest challenges you'll ever face, trust me, I did it for two years but I made it out alive. To keep this short and sweet, here are some tips on how to study and be a successful nursing student:

Discipline yourself!!! -make time to study and don't put it off until the day before, there is way too much to learn and you're not just learning this information for this one test, you're learning it to save someone's life someday. Don't stay up til 12 am with friends, skip that concert, and choose not to be impulsive when prompted with a good time.

Prioritize your time studying- I cannot stress this enough, spend more time studying and focusing on what you don't know or understand, rather than going over the WHOLE entire study guide over and over. It is good to know the information you are studying, but once you understand it move on and really focus on what it is you don't know.

Relate the content to real life- if you try to memorize everything you learn it may take a while to actually click, try relating the material to a patient with an actual problem and from there you can tie in the labs, EKG, meds, etc.

Highlight the important stuff- skim over the chapter and highlight what you need to know and not the minor details, or it will take you 3 months to finish this weeks reading assignments.

If you hear the instructor repeat something several times during the lecture, write it down and make a point to get that information down, it's probably important.

Spread out your workload- if you have 3 tests next week plan out your time to equally study for those tests. Do not study all week for the first test, and then study only the day before each following test. This will not help you.

Give yourself breaks, and take snacks while you study or else you will waste time leaving to get food, and you will get distracted and eventually convince yourself to end your studying early.

Don't do study groups if 75% of time is going to be used to talk and complain about nursing school, we all do it. But trust me, it doesn't change things and it doesn't help you.

Lastly, simplify EVERYTHING- if you make flash cards summarize the info instead of writing the information from the book word for word, its way too complex to remember. Simplifying is key.

Goodluck :)