In need of study tips that won't fail!

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I'm currently a nursing student at a 2 year technical college. Recently I had to withdrawal from my Anatomy & Physiology lecture and now lab classes.. I was wondering if anyone, including nurses can give wonderful study tips for me as I prepare myself to retake the course again in the spring!

Specializes in NICU, ICU, PICU, Academia.

Write your notes by hand. Swiping over something with a highlighter does nothing to cement that learning. Writing out 'humerus, radius, ulna' DOES.

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I second the Anatomy Coloring Books. They're really helpful! I found that printing out blank diagrams and then labelling them also helped me. Pneumonics helped me a lot with the physiology part as well as watching videos on different systems on Youtube.

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I know it seems odd, but I would suggest purchasing the Gwinnett Technical Colleges lecture notes and online access for Anatomy and Phys 1 &2. GTC caters their students in the health sciences. Those gave me a solid understanding of the content and I have them to refer to to this very day. You just fill in the book as you watch the lecture notes. You might have to figure out how to purchase them if you don't reside in GA. But it is well worth it for nursing especially.

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What's a greaseboard?

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Hi there! I would be more than happy to share how I did these courses! First, you need to mentally prepare yourself knowing that you are going to throw everything you have into these classes, and then some. This is going to be your life. You owe it to yourself, because you have to study and know this stuff for being a nurse; therefore, that will later reflect on you as you take care of your patients. And if you can, take these classes by themselves and not with anything else. Cut back on pretty much everything else that is not school; you really have to eat, breathe, and sleep it. Now, tips for actually studying: First, to get the most out of studying (and in general the whole class), read your book, take notes, do the reviews at the chapter ends, etc. No matter if something is actually put as an assignment by your teacher, take advantage and do it anyway! On that same note, the most important thing is CONSTANTLY check yourself on your understanding of the things you are reading and activities you are doing. If you're reading in the book, and you're not able to follow along with the same thought process written, you need to stop...and go back and look to see what it is you don't understand: If its a vocab word, look it up and then see how that actually makes sense with what you were reading; if there is a connection being made, flip back to the other part and then see how that fits and makes sense.

Does that make sense?? I hope so - Anyway, so always stay immersed in the material and be thinking in a way that you truly understand what is being taught to you. This stuff is hard enough already, right? So keep ontop of things and ahead - (as you know) you sure cant fall behind! Also, try usuing notecards, and/or charts for studying different things - what helped me A LOT was using different colors to help learn and remember material. Keep 4 or 5 colors consistantely the same, and it REALLY make a lot of differnce and set things apart from the others easier.

Gosh this is long, sorry!

Hope what I've said helps you in some way at least! :)

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I thought greaseboard was like board to write with a grease pencil. Could be wrong, but I used a grease pencil to write lab values on. The grease pencil would not smudged when wet.

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Get the biggest cheapest greaseboard you can find. dray what youre trying to learn and label it using your book/notes as a guide

Hope it helps

Greaseboard. Never knew they were called that. Great ideal. Love this website!

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When I was last in college (over 20 years ago) taking a health degree, we would print off a ton of flash card/questions, and then play the trivial pursuit game as a group. Sometimes there would only be 2 of us playing, other times 4+, but either way - every question was taken from our flashcard set. It was a great way to learn...I was amazed how those little bits of info would "stick" using this method.

I'm now a pre-nursing student, and plan to use this technique again .

In fact - there's a business in there, methinks ;)

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Thank you very much for all the information. Currently, I´m studyng a nursing degree and I know that, sometimes, It could be a little bit hard to organize your time, specially when you´ve exams and internships at the same time. Honestly, I usually study one or two months before the exam, but I can give you some tips.

First of all, I´d recommend you to ask students from higher levels about the subjects in you college and the best way to study them. For example, there´re some lecturers whose usually repeat questions from other years so they could help you to do a review before the exam. If the subject´s too long, you could use those questions to look and review the most important topics.

Secondly, you should read and ask about the form of the exam. It can be like a test, short answers or maybe you´ve to do a redaction about one specific topic. Once you know it, you decide how can you prepare it. For instance, if the exam´s a test, it could be enough to read the lecturer notes two or three times and try to understan it. However, if you´ve to do a redaction, I´d recommend to make some diagrams and resumes.

I hope you find this information useful to your exams and reviews. It´s my experience in three years in a nursing degree!

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