How much time do you *really*spend studying?

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I am curious if I am doing too much, or not enough! I would love to hear how often everyone studies and if you dont mind sharing, what your general GPA/letter grade is. I spend at least 3 hours every night studying, and weekends are a free for all. This has worked well so far (pre-reqs) but I havent taken my first nursing test yet... I hope its enough!

Specializes in MedSurg, Clinic, ER.

I have heard that it is cumulative learning. I'm just in the very beginning, and a lot of this is new to me... so I study accordingly... Even second semester learning is different because it builds on what you've already learned.

Each person is different... and I think age has a lot to do with it. I'm 37 and there is no way I learn like the 18-21 year olds in my cohort. :) (Ahh I wish I had been focused enough to go to school at that age!)

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.

I just can not imagine studying for hours upon hours a day. Especially after having lecture all day. Than again I was one of those kids that didn't believe in homework, figured I was in class all day I shouldn't have to go home and do more school work all night.

I still manage to do good though so I guess it works for me. I can read a book for fun for 15 hours straight. I can read a text book for 20 mins and give up lol

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This just makes me very curious about how I will handle the nursing coursework. I am previously a pre-med student that was studying biochemistry and had only 2 courses to finish this degree, so I was pretty deep into the challenging science classes when I decided to switch to nursing. My last year as a biochemistry major, I would study from 3-8 or 3-9 with about a 1 hour break for roughly 3-4 days of the week. On weekends, I would study about 1-3 hours each day because I worked. So that adds up roughly to 18 hours a week, or about 2-3 hours each day.

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Specializes in Telemetry/IMC.

Well, I actually think I've gotten better about studying over the semesters. That's still not saying much though. I probably average 2-4 hours a week. But I agree with the poster who said that it's about the quality, not the quantity of studying.

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Specializes in None.

I spend an hour about every day looking over that days lecture materials. I also relisten to the lectures daily.

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Studies have shown that one should study three hours per credit hour per week, minimum. I am taking Pharm and Foundations for a total of 10, so I have to shoot for 4 1/2 to 5 hrs per day.

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This just makes me very curious about how I will handle the nursing coursework. I am previously a pre-med student that was studying biochemistry and had only 2 courses to finish this degree, so I was pretty deep into the challenging science classes when I decided to switch to nursing. My last year as a biochemistry major, I would study from 3-8 or 3-9 with about a 1 hour break for roughly 3-4 days of the week. On weekends, I would study about 1-3 hours each day because I worked. So that adds up roughly to 18 hours a week, or about 2-3 hours each day.

I'm a chem minor....so I've taken some of the science classes you have. I've found nursing school to be a very different kind of studying. One change is the volume of work covered a week. Even in O-chem, we'd cover a chapter or so a week. During one term of nursing school, we had three classes (pathophys, pharm, and Acute Care....our version of Med Surg) and were covering 3-4 chapters a week for each class. Also, for each exam....we're responsible for everything taught since the beginning of the program....so, cumulative is the word for sure. The questions are also very different (as I'm sure you've seen and heard already). Our exams are all multiple choice....but either all the answers are correct and you need to choose the most correct.....or, there are 5 options and you need to choose a combination of those options (ie is it 1 & 3, 1,4 & 5, all of the above, none of the above, etc) So, there's no logic-ing your way through it.

As far as the original question: I study about 3-4 hours a day....more on weekends, and more before big exams. I have a 3.94

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The difficultly of each program obviously varies and the speed because if I studied 4 hours a week, I would no longer be in nursing I would have failed a long time ago. Our program says/suggests studying 3 times the credit hours, for me that would be 30 hours per week. But if you are learning 5 chapters and you have a week to know it then it make take more than that. And yes quality over quantity!!!

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I study 2 hours... but that doesn't seem enough for me... but I can't help it, I doze off to sleep. The thing I realized is, I should listen to lectures and digest its content and it will make it easier for me to study that I don't have to spend long hours reading.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
The difficultly of each program obviously varies and the speed because if I studied 4 hours a week, I would no longer be in nursing I would have failed a long time ago. Our program says/suggests studying 3 times the credit hours, for me that would be 30 hours per week. But if you are learning 5 chapters and you have a week to know it then it make take more than that. And yes quality over quantity!!!

This isn't necessarily true. I don't study 4 hrs a week and my program is not easy by any means and is at a very fast speed. People are just different. We lost 13-14 people by the second half of our second semester to not meeting the 77% grade min. We didn't lose any to the math test that requires 100% or to skills check offs. It was all to not getting that grade strictly from exams. I know that at least 90% of those students studied a heck of a lot more than I ever did, yet still struggled a lot. The only class I struggled in it wasn't even the material I had a hard time with it, I just lost focus and got into reading a series of 10 books and when I read I don't put it down so I went into 3 of my exams without ever sleeping. When I did bad on those tests and reviewed I saw that I made a lot of stupid errors. Probably from lack of sleep.

Our school also recommends 3 hrs of study per credit. Well I can tell you, there is no way in heck I would ever study that much.

But it's not fair to say someones program must not be hard or fast paced because those people have an easier time. I have done better in nursing school than I did in my Pre Reqs with a LOT less effort.

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This isn't necessarily true. I don't study 4 hrs a week and my program is not easy by any means and is at a very fast speed. People are just different. We lost 13-14 people by the second half of our second semester to not meeting the 77% grade min. We didn't lose any to the math test that requires 100% or to skills check offs. It was all to not getting that grade strictly from exams. I know that at least 90% of those students studied a heck of a lot more than I ever did, yet still struggled a lot. The only class I struggled in it wasn't even the material I had a hard time with it, I just lost focus and got into reading a series of 10 books and when I read I don't put it down so I went into 3 of my exams without ever sleeping. When I did bad on those tests and reviewed I saw that I made a lot of stupid errors. Probably from lack of sleep.

Our school also recommends 3 hrs of study per credit. Well I can tell you, there is no way in heck I would ever study that much.

But it's not fair to say someones program must not be hard or fast paced because those people have an easier time. I have done better in nursing school than I did in my Pre Reqs with a LOT less effort.

I think it is fair to say that the exam material might be more from the lecture and less from the books if folks are succeeding without studying as much. I know it's about a 70:30 ratio between material that's covered in lecture vs material that is just in the book in my program. If folks don't keep up with their reading and studying....it's not likely they'll pass.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
I think it is fair to say that the exam material might be more from the lecture and less from the books if folks are succeeding without studying as much. I know it's about a 70:30 ratio between material that's covered in lecture vs material that is just in the book in my program. If folks don't keep up with their reading and studying....it's not likely they'll pass.

Majority of my class isn't getting by without studying much. I attend 98% of the lectures. Some lectures I can really get into. Some like this psych class we have I can't even focus in class. I am doodling and playing on my phone or iPod touch so I don't fall asleep. But I am also pretty good with the psych stuff already. Those were always my easiest classes.

My Med/Surge instructor teaches the class in a way that is really engaging so it's easy to pay attention in that class. But just because I personally have done ok in my nursing program with minimal effort, doesn't mean it's an easy or slow program. It's not and I am no doubt an exception and not the norm in our class. I will listen to friends totally bash our program about how hard the grading scale is compared to other local schooles, or how much reading they give us and so on and I just let them vent because I don't agree. Don't get me wrong, I would love to be on the grading scale that the local BSN program uses. But it is what it is and I understand the reasoning as to why it's stricter. I overall think our program has been great, but I am in the minority.

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