where do I start?

punkingirl · Aug 28, 2007

may i suggest you take several hospital tours first...look around and observe carefully. basic math is fine. great people skills are a must and a plus. look up your local nursing organizations and be a guest at meetings. i did it over 40 years....take very good care of your body (there will probable be lifting and turning and proper lifting skills should be done at all times to prevent injury). it takes a special person to begin this career but you will be great and do good things !!!

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · Aug 28, 2007

I, too, have difficulties with math. Unfortunately, some nursing programs will require that you pass a college algebra class. Virtually all nursing programs will mandate that you pass a series of medication math tests. Don't worry, because most college campuses offer free tutoring at their math labs.

In addition, take one day off to shadow an experienced nurse for a few hours at a time to see if this is something you'd like to do. Follow a nurse around at a hospital, clinic, doctors' office, nursing home, dialysis center, and a variety of settings to see if one really appeals to you. I have known that some future nurses are really disgusted by the fast pace of the major hospitals, but they end up loving the slower pace of group home nursing.

Good luck to you!

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Aug 28, 2007

lollipoppirate!

it's good you find science easy, but you will discover that with college level science courses, math is integrated into them, so a basic level understanding of algebra is necessary. you also need to know how to do math with fractions. when you get to college it is possible to take remedial math classes to get up to speed with your math and re-take basic and intermediate algebra. most colleges require all students to take math placement exams anyway before allowing them to register in any math classes and will not allow you to register for a level of math that you have not proven to be proficient in. some college nursing programs (depends on the requirements of the college and nursing school) may require you to take a class called college algebra which requires geometry and intermediate algebra before you can take it. i have been tutoring in math for some time and i can tell you that math, like nursing, is based on very logical principles. you may not have realized that, but when people really knuckle down and read explanations in their math books carefully they do begin to see the logic behind math. proficiency in math requires knowing the methods to solve the problems (and there are not that many of them) and then doing (solving) as many problems as you can to get practice at it.

also, you will be taking sciences classes for nursing that you have not had before in school: anatomy and physiology, and microbiology. these two classes are college level classes that are required by most college nursing programs.

here is information about the two different licensing levels of nursing:

http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos083.htm - about registered nursing from the u.s. department of labor
http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos102.htm - about lpn nursing from the u.s. department of labor

and these are websites with information about a career in nursing that you should read and explore because you will learn a great deal about what you need to do to become a nurse on them:

in the majority of cases rn programs of nursing are part of college programs. this means you need to apply and become a student at that particular college first as well as take the classes necessary to achieve a degree. you also have to apply to the nursing program within the college after you are a matriculated student of the college. there is usually a requirement that you have completed required coursework before you can do that as well as have maintained a specific level grade point average. that coursework usually includes anatomy and physiology, microbiology, math, english, and classes in psychology. each college will have their own specific requirements. this is why it is important to read a college's catalog since that information will be posted there. there are so many today that want to be rns that there is often a waiting list to actually get into the nursing classes. some of these waiting lists are a couple of years long. some nursing schools here in california have gone to a lottery system where all the nursing school applicants' names are put into a hopper and if there is room for 100 nursing students, they pull out 100 names from the hopper; those 100 are in the next starting class of nursing students. some nursing schools allow everyone who applies to take nursing classes but they weed students out at successive levels with only the students making the very top grades being allowed to continue on to the end. since most colleges today have websites you can find this information easily in the college catalogs on the individual college websites. you can find a list of the approved nursing schools in the state where you live on the state board of nursing website. you can get a weblink to your state board of nursing from the allnurses website by clicking on the "links" tab above and then on "boards of nursing" and finally on your state when the list of state boards comes up. when you get to the board of nursing, look for a link to educational programs.

since you are new to allnurses, you should check out the nursing student forums. you can do that by clicking on the "students" tab above. that will give you a listing of all the nursing student forums that you can link in to. you might want to start by checking out the pre-nursing student forum. students who are already taking nursing classes mostly post in the general nursing student discussion forum and the nursing student assistance forum. since you are worried about math, you might want to check out the dosage calculations thread in the nursing student assistance forum (https://allnurses.com/forums/f205/dosage-calculations-88867.html), especially the posts near the end to see examples of how nurses put math to work. there is a "sticky" thread in the pre-nursing student forum that has weblinks posted on it to math help sites in basic math and algebra.

good luck in your endeavors. happy reading. don't be afraid to ask questions about anything you don't understand. welcome to allnurses! :welcome: