how did you make it through RN school!

Lol...the caffeine pills. I forgot them. I don't drink coffee, so caffeine pills are my saviour. But I never take more than 3 per day :)

as someone else mentioned, you'll be wishing school was your biggest worry when you hit the job market.

i'm going back for my second degree (in nursing) and while i know how people feel, i just think to myself "wah" when i hear co-workers complaining about how they're sooo OVER school. if you only knew.

Make sure you balance your time with school vs life so you don't get too burned out. I know a lot of people suggest having tons of fun during breaks and then saying "adios" to everyone during school... but I don't agree. I think you need more of an even balance to keep from going insane. Reward yourself occasionally for working so hard - go see a movie on a "school night", read a novel (non nursing related book) during a regular weekend, have a date night with your significant other (or friend/family member), etc. Make sure you treat yourself well during the long year ahead of you! And definitely make sure you get enough sleep. No cramming the night before an exam - it's probably going to make things worse, not better. Try hard not to stress. Plan enough time to get the necessities done with and don't stress over the extra things that might not get accomplished.

You've made it this far - that is something to be proud of!! Keep up the good work! You can do this!!

I have a friend who has talked about being a nurse since I became an LPN almost 7 years ago. She was also one of the people who told me I was complaining about nothing because "after all I do have a liberal arts degree. I know what school's like." Yeah! I told her what it was really like and she told me I was exaggerating and just trying to scare her. So I shut up.

She called me crying 3 weeks into the semester. She was taking English, A & P, and something else. She didn't understand how they could expect you to know everything in A & P! I was like, "Ummmm and that's not even the hard part! Wait til you get to the actual nursing classes!" She was failing and had already skipped a bunch of classes. She apologized for saying I was exaggerating and just complaining and that she now looked up to me for being able to do school FT and work FT. She's now giving it an honest try, and getting her CNA so she can see what it's really all about.

It was some serious vindication lol and it felt damn good, as mean as that is to say.

I wrote an article about the very same problems you're having. Please check it out:

https://allnurses.com/nursing-articles/how-survive-thrive-532725.html