Junior nursing student -- 1st clinical semester. REALLY need advice!

[kay4horses]

I am a junior in a 4 year nursing program. It is my first semester taking theory classes with clinical: gerontology/mental health, med/surg, skills lab, and clinical. We do care plans every sunday in prep for monday clinical. Monday night we complete the care plan for Tuesday clinical. With my exams being Wednesday through Friday almost each week I am starting to panic! I have really worked so hard to get to this point, a ton of students did not move on. I keep hearing stories from so many others about students who failed med/surg etc. I am feeling so overwhelmed with the work load and I am thinking, how the heck do I study for my exams (2-3/week) with care plans and papers on top of it all? I really need some advice as to what worked for you guys getting through nursing school. I know time management is huge, and usually I am good at it. However, with so many assignments/tests every week my brain doesn't know how to even begin! I really want to become a nurse and want to do anything I can do make sure I get through this program. Any advice would be awesome!

[RN403, BSN, RN]

I know it all seems so overwhelming right now, but, you will get into your own groove as time goes on. Many of us have been in your shoes and many of us have made it through - so can you.

Try making a schedule with the work or studying you would like to get accomplished each day. Break it up. Don't try to do too much of one thing in one day.

How I would break it up:

Since W-F are exam days it looks like you will need to save your weekends for studying. Maybe Fri (after class and after previous exam) and Sat could be strictly study days (working around class, of course)...breaking it up here and there to take breaks. Then Sunday you can focus on your care plans and preparing for clinical...maybe adding in an hour or two to study if you have time. Same thing for Monday night. Maybe then Tuesday you could study after or before clinical (depending on what time clinical is).

(This is just my opinion and based on how I sort of planned my time during school. )

You will be very busy this semester. Remember to put school first and social activities second. It is important to do other things beside school, but, remember that school is the priority. Again, you will get into your own groove - this might serve as an example as to how you might manage your time.

There are many other threads on AN that you might find of assistance in the General Nursing Student/Student Nurse Assistance sections. I'm sure there are threads on this topic that might help you.

Very best wishes to you. As crazy as it all seems right now, it is do-able.