Is nursing school REALLY that hard?

What Members Are Saying (AI-Generated Summary)

Members are discussing the difficulty of nursing school, with some expressing that it is exhausting due to the workload, constant busywork, and testing. Some members find it challenging due to the amount of studying and prioritization required, while others believe it is not as hard as perceived. The discussion also touches on entrance exams, grammar improvement, and the importance of loving the field of nursing to succeed.

I just started the 2 year ADN program at my community college about a week ago. I am actually the youngest in my program at 18, and I have no nursing experience. Before I started, I obsessed over blogs and spent a lot of nights wondering if I could even make it through nursing school. I graduated high school in the top 5% of my class with a good ACT score, and I'm generally a hard worker. I am just wondering, was nursing school as hard as you thought it would be and if so, why?

it gets harder every semester

You MUST LOVE It. If you don't you won't make it or you'll find it to be the hardest thing ever. But if you do, it will be Great And who knows, you might want to go on and become a doctor !

Specializes in Med-Tele; ED; ICU.
Helenegusa said:
You MUST LOVE It. If you don't you won't make it or you'll find it to be the hardest thing ever. But if you do, it will be Great And who knows, you might want to go on and become a doctor !

You don't need to love it. I certainly didn't love nursing school and I didn't find it to be terribly challenging. It did require consistent effort but it wasn't very hard.

I haven't applied to my CC program for my ADN yet, but I have heard a lot of pretentious sounding talk about it from nursing students before. I mean if it's earth-shatteringly hard and people still get pumped out of programs, then why not become an MD and make 100,000 a year lol.

Ashcash said:
yes it really is harder than you can imagine

Not necessarily. Nursing school is only as hard as you make it. Everyone has a completely different experience from each other. For some it's hard, and for others it was easier than their prereqs. The worst possible thing anyone can do is listen to other people when they say how hard or easy it is. It's school, just get through it.

it is one of the harder degrees but its not hard. Most college degrees are super easy to get, minus some maths and hard sciences.

the busy work was all dumb though, which made it harder

Spadeforce said:
it is one of the harder degrees but its not hard. Most college degrees are super easy to get, minus some maths and hard sciences.

the busy work was all dumb though, which made it harder

This question is not really answer-able. You might have thought it was not hard, but there have been PLENTY of threads started on AN by posters who think nursing school is very hard indeed.

The answer to this question simply depends on the individual in question, as well as the school they attend.

Xlorgguss said:

Its exhausting! To give you an idea my program is considered 'part-time' because it's only 9 credit hours since all my non-nursing courses are done. We have to watch a minimum of 3 hours worth of lecture prior to each weekly class. Some weeks it is closer to 5 hours. Then there is reading anywhere from 3-7 chapters for the week. I don't consider myself a slow reader by any means but reading from a text book is significantly slower especially if you are trying to pick out key information. On top of that we usually have some project to do weekly. It might be a paper, a concept map, a presentation, but it's always "something". Then there is usually 1-2 case studies for clinical a week. And every three weeks or so there is an exam. The content of nursing school can be challenging because it isn't just route memorization but also prioritization. So for instance I can study for hours to get the content of my exam down but sometimes it all comes down to the way a question is asked to determine if you get it correct. It can be discouraging walking out of an exam knowing that no further amount of studying would have bettered your grade. It all comes down to one moment of time while your are answering a question. That can be daunting. On top of all of that add in working full-time (like I do) and having a family with kids (thankfully I don't) and you can see how it quickly becomes overwhelming. The actual content of nursing isn't the worst or most difficult. It's the testing, constant busywork, workload, and outside comitments that can make it overwhelming.

Thank you for giving a detailed overview, I know exactly what you mean about "it comes down to one moment in time". Sounds like a lot of busy work!

Specializes in Prior military RN/current ICU RN..

"easy" or "hard" make absolutely no difference.  Do you want to be an RN or not?  If you do then to become an RN means completing school and passing the NCLEX.  If you don't want to be an RN then you don't go to nursing school.  You gotta get from point A to point B and how "difficult" the path is is inconsequential.  It is the path.

Specializes in STICU.

I think it is school dependent. Some schools are not, and some will try to weed people out. It also depends on where you end up working. 

I earned mostly As and some Bs. I worked full-time too. My teacher in NCLEX review, who was a dean too, asked me if I was fine. I explained I really didn't have much time to read anymore as I used to. I was surprised she wasn't even worried about my grades. She was worried that something happens to me. I was that student who nearly perfected everything, or I missed one or a few questions.  

I used to help other students back in the non-nursing major. Learners were unique. Others just didn't have it for whatever reason. I wasn't and am not judging. It was my experience. It's one of the reasons why I wouldn't want to be a teacher. I'd lose my mind. 

It's a whole new way of learning. That is what I was told. 

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