Microbiology??

Beary-nice · Apr 13, 2006

hi y'all!!
i will start an adn class in fall of 07(sooooo far away! ), but am going to get my generals out of the way this year. i will be taking microbiology this fall and have really no idea what to expect. can anyone give me a heads up on what the class will be like and any helpfull hints y'all have??? i would so greatly appreciate it!!

hi!

don't know how similiar all micro classes are but mine was some gen. biology review, some chemistry review, learned lots about different kinds of bacteria and viruses and the diseases they cause.

we learned different lab techniques...used microscopes alot!!! and, toward the end of the semester we had bacterial "unknowns" that we had to figure out what they were by doing different tests. we did this both on the computer and hands on in the lab.

my helpful advice...ask questions, follow your syllabus, keep in touch with your instructor the minute you have a problem and by all means study! i tutor a few people in some classes and studying seems to be a huge issue!

good luck most of all!

beary

allthingsbright · Apr 13, 2006

oh man........Micro has been hard for me. I have worked my butt of and have a 97 right now (two weeks to go).

Read your chapters

Take good notes

Think about recording lectures

Do everything ahead of time and study a little EVERY night

Get organized before going to lab so you know what you are doing (read about the procedures, bacterias, etc)

Make a friend in class who you can study with, email questions, share notes, etc

Good luck. :)

HM2VikingRN, RN · Apr 13, 2006

Micro is a lot of memory work. Stay organized. STUDY STUDY STUDY.

Best of LUCK!

Finally2008 · Apr 13, 2006

Notecards will be your friends!! I made up a matching game with all my different diseases. I put the common name for the disease on one, symptoms on another, and the organism which caused the disease on another. I just played my "games" over and over. Also, with the lab, take good notes on everything! It helps so much when you are trying to determine your unknown. As with all classes, read before the lecture and then read again afterwards, focusing on the lecture notes. All this work earned me a 98.5 in the class! I loved the class, too--great professor and great classmates (Hi Jen!) It was so cool, too, at the end of our class. On the first day, our professor gave us a "pretest" on what we would learn and I thought, "I will never learn all this..." He gave us a posttest (the same test) along with our final and I knew it all! It was so awesome to see how much I had learned.

Gompers, BSN, RN · Apr 13, 2006

We got to do a lot of intersting experiments when I took microbiology.

One was where we swabbed things (our hands, the drinking fountain, pens and pencils, the tops of our water bottles, etc.) and did cultures on petri dishes. The next week we looked at the results under a microscope and identified the bacteria found. You'd be disgusted to know what grew out from those swabs! If anything, that class reinforces good handwashing.

Another cool one was where we got petri dishes that were labeled with whatever bacteria resided in them. We had little paper punch-out holes that were different colors which told us what kind of antibiotic solution each paper had been treated with. We put them on the petri dishes a few inches apart. After a few days, we were able to see which bacteria responded to which antibiotics, and how well. The larger the bacteria-free ring around the paper punch-out was, the more suseptable the bacteria was to that antibiotic. This experiment still comes to mind every time I have a patient with positive blood cultures - our lab sheets list all the typical antibiotics and how suseptable the bacteria is to each of the meds. Makes complete sense to me after that lab!

stpauligirl · Apr 14, 2006

Hi Y'all!!
I will start an ADN class in Fall of 07(sooooo far away! ), but am going to get my generals out of the way this year. I will be taking microbiology this fall and have really no idea what to expect. Can anyone give me a heads up on what the class will be like and any helpfull hints y'all have??? I would so greatly appreciate it!!

Be prepared to study your butt off in that class....just like the other 4 credit hour prereq science classes, however it's not quite as crazy as A&P...it's not an easy class!!!! Prior knowledge in Chemistry will make it easier.

stpauligirl · Apr 14, 2006

oh man........Micro has been hard for me. I have worked my butt of and have a 97 right now (two weeks to go).
Read your chapters
Take good notes
Think about recording lectures
Do everything ahead of time and study a little EVERY night
Get organized before going to lab so you know what you are doing (read about the procedures, bacterias, etc)
Make a friend in class who you can study with, email questions, share notes, etc
Good luck. :)

:yeahthat:

tattoomysoul · Apr 14, 2006

Just wanted to thank all that replied! AT least i Know what to expect now!! Thanks!!:bowingpur

LAAngelsFan · Apr 15, 2006

I loved Microbiology!!! I know, I'm a bit of a geek, but I really enjoyed it. It helps that I had an awesome teacher that was really passionate about Microbiology. I know that it sounds weird to be passionate about Micro., but it made the class more fun and I learned so, so much! Almost everyone in the class was taking it for nursing, so the teacher took a very clinical approach. I agree with what everyone else said about studying, taking good notes, etc. My best advice would be to stay organized! That was key to getting an A in my Micro. class. Good luck and Congratulations!!!

malika · Apr 15, 2006

I am taking Microbiology right now, and I'll say that it's one of the most useful classes for Nursing after A&P I, II. Although our class requires a texbook by Black "Microbiology", I am using another book. It's called "Microbiology Ridiculously Easy" and it's helping me a lot. It's fun book, which simplifies everything and makes things easy to memorize. It's about $30, and I would suggest evdy who gonna take it to buy. Good Luck guys.

allthingsbright · Apr 15, 2006

:yeahthat:

LOL! Hi stpauligirl...we seem to run into each other lots around here! Hope you are having a good weekend w/ your hubby...

OH............sorry for the OT post on this thread! ;)