I got in! Best study guides :)

[2bEQNurse14]

Hi guys! I have been taking pre-requisite and general education courses since Sept 2011 at Central Ohio Technical College in Newark. I found out last minute in Feb that I could apply for our summer 2013 start and I got in! I was so ecstatic I almost threw my iPad to the floor, lol. After all of this work in chemistry and math, it finally feels like I am getting somewhere!

For the first semester, I am taking A&P I, pharmacology, and intro to professional nursing. What should I expect from these classes? I am slightly nervous about A&P as your hear horror stories(we all know how the student rumor mill goes!) about how rough it is. Would anyone be able to suggest a book/study guide that breaks everything down for someone who has never taken a class like this in their life? Are any of the Barron's or 'For Dummies' books good?

Do you guys think my TI-84 calculator is ok, or should I get something much simpler for the program?

Thanks guys! I am super excited about starting!

[Stephalump]

It's been ages since I've taken A&P, so I don't really have any advice on supplements or anything. It's usually a pre-requisite to nursing school, so there are probably lots of good suggestions in that forum.

I don't think I'd worry too much about it. The horror stories come from the weeding out affect, but people don't fall off the boat because the material is rocket science. My ten year old memorized the bones in the body with me.

It's more a test of study skills and memorization abilities . Some people have them and some people don't. If you made it this far, I'm sure you'll be fine :)

Pharm is more memorization.

Are you taking statistics? If not, I don't think you'd need a graphing calculator. All the math we do is very basic, and we have to show all calculations by hand, meaning the only workout my calculator gets is basic adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. I have a $3 Walmart calculator. In fact, we can only use basic calculators during testing.

[Sfrazilus]

It's true that prereqs aren't rocket science, but don't forget that a 10 yo's brain is very flexible. Plus school's have changed. My nephews and nieces are studying things several years earlier than I was.

Since some prereqs are not visibly related to your area of interest in nursing, getting yourself to study them may be a challenge. From my experience, people who do well: 1) study their butts off individually or with others that STAY FOCUSED, 2) talk to professor for advice on how to get material, 3) get a tutor at the first sign of trouble, 4) find video tutorials online or 5) get advice from peers who have taken that class previously. Yes, these all seem like common sense, but how many people fail these classes every semester?