Is it just me or......

PhiladelphiaLove · Jan 3, 2011

This is inspirational. A lot of the posts about how difficult and hard nursing school defintely scared me a bit. Not just on this forum but in real life everyone was saying that nursing school is SOOO hard, often I was wondering if they were trying to discourage me.
Were the NCLEX style questions as strange as everyone else made it out to be? I googled some of them and they seem like any other multiple choice questions

I'm with you 100%. The things people have said hasn't just scared me, it has literally scared the living sh*t out of me, on top of that having my B.A. already doesn't make me feel even a LITTLE bit more confident.

jjjoy, LPN · Jan 6, 2011

Were the NCLEX style questions as strange as everyone else made it out to be? I googled some of them and they seem like any other multiple choice questions

NCLEX style questions can at times be tricky - not all, but some. It can make it difficult to ace a test or know exactly what to focus on while studying because there may be a few questions from left field in some tests. Still, there should be enough straight forward questions to get decent grades if you're a strong student. It just can be rather disconcerting to feel like you really understand and remember what you learned and then find that you got a couple of oddball questions wrong that your instructor suggests means that maybe you don't really get it.

Trilldayz,RN BSN · Jan 6, 2011

Again, always remember that everybody's experiences, nursing schools, study methods, even lives, are different. You cannot just assume that when someone else says something is really hard or really easy, it must be. You honestly just have to wait and see it for yourself. I just dont want any pre-nursing students necessarily reading these to become "sold" on other people's varying opinions.

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · Jan 6, 2011

My first semester Fundamentals class I thought was gravy, we did lose like 6 people (out of 50) that class, so it wasn't easy per say, but I got a B in it, B is 85% at my school and I believe I got an 89% in that class. I never studied for it and I never cracked the book. I took the exams and thought FINALLY exams I can relate to. It seemed like so much common sense stuff without any medical background (outside being a patient) or college background outside of pre reqs. I have done better grade wise in Nursing school itself than I did in most of my science pre reqs. (I aced psychology and Sociology). Med/Surg I didn't find as easy as Fundamentals. I have gotten a C in that, but my C's would have been B's in other programs or a normal grading scale so I didn't dwell on it to much. Second year they amped it up a bit and I have to actually open the book now which hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I managed to get high B's in Psych and Peds and Maternity though and although I didn't do great in Pharm (although again, I didn't put a lot of effort into it either) I aced the Pharm Hesi with one of the top scores and even got an award for how well I did on it along with a few others in my class. Ironic since I got an 84% in the class.

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · Jan 6, 2011

So far it has been no where near the level of difficulty I had anticipated, considering the things I was reading and hearing from others. Hope it stays that way.

I feel the same way. I got in and was waiting for it to get like I would read. I mean each semester we have had a "hell week" where we had so much to do and so much pressure and no time to breath that it just seemed to overwhelming. Each student can probably tell you exactly what that week was and what all it encompassed. But other than that, I finally gave up waiting for the ball to drop.

I haven't given up anything in my life. People said NS will be your life, say goodbye to your friends and family and fun etc. etc.

Nope, still watch my shows, still play online, still hang with my family and go out with my friends and still have date night with the husband.

chinacatSN · Jan 7, 2011

I wouldn't say that NS is so difficult that it's almost impossible to complete. For me, it's the just the sheer volume of work required. In my prereq's, we barely had any homework at all. I would go to class, go home and do what I wanted, and study for tests the night before - and I only studied for at most an hour. Most of the time, I didn't study at all. I passed all my prereq's with A's.

The biggest issue for me in NS is translating the test questions. I can know the content backwards and forwards but some of those test questions are tricky. I hate when you have to pick the best answer out of four correct answers - and they are correct answers because we go through the tests after everyone has taken them. Our instructor will tell us that, yes, all the answers were correct but answer A was a better answer than the rest because of such and such. SO annoying. I really hate when you read something in the book, apply it to the test, and the instructor says it's the opposite.

I also get really frustrated with some of the work. Many of those stupid APA papers seem redundant and like they're just trying to fill up space. I also HATE group projects - usually, I get stuck with someone who doesn't want to do any of the work or someone who wants to put inappropriate things into our project.

However, I was expecting it to be MUCH more difficult - especially the math part. I am NOT a math person and the dimensional analysis is incredibly easy. But the ease can also depend on the person. There are women in my class who study 5 times more than I do and they just don't seem to get it. So far, we haven't lost any students but there were several people who were close to failing out last semester. Some people totally over analyze everything and over think and they end up doing poorly. Some people give up when they don't do well and end up doing worse. Some people are TOO confident and think they don't have to do anything - those are usually the people who do the worst.

Oh yeah - forgot to add that things DO get more difficult once clinicals start going, for those of you who haven't started them yet. I don't know about you guys, but our careplans are 20 pages long and are due by 1230 on Wednesday - no blanks, at least 5 diagnoses with at least 3 interventions for each and both a short term and long term goal with evaluation. All the patterns pages must be filled out completely along with labs, pathophys, comorbids, and a complete med list. I hate careplans - and doing them on top of regular homework and studying for tests is not fun. Especially when your instructor would rather play games during lecture time instead of actually giving lecture. Ugh. Can't wait until school is over!

Dotjean · Jan 7, 2011

....but early on i figured out a way to study that has caused my grades to jump from low b's to a's. but who knows i could be setting myself up for future failure:eek:!!!![/size]

please share any advice on your way of study to bring your grade up.

Guest463881 · Jan 7, 2011

Academically I do not think nursing school is very hard but in combination with long clinical shifts it becomes stressful , but I agree I think a lot of people are overly dramatic about how hard it is.

OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN · Jan 7, 2011

I think every subject is different for everyone. Some people struggle with english and excel in chem and so on.. An example i had a general ed art class taht i thought was gonna be my first B yet found pathophysiology and stats very easy..General chem I struggled with but organic just seemed to make sense to me and I barely studied. So I think it is just individual on how hard a class may be.