Most Useful Non-Nursing Course(s)

[Not_A_Hat_Person]

After seeing a few threads from students about what non-nursing courses to take, I started wondering about the non-nursing courses that have been the most useful in my career so far.

I had a BA in English when I started nursing school. Newswriting taught me to document accurately, using as few words as possible.

World Religions and Spanish, both of which I took in high school, were very useful in nursing school, though I haven't used them in my career yet.

What non-nursing course(s) has been the most useful to your nursing career?

[Lacie, BSN, RN]

Medical Ethics which was a master's level course but one of the best I had the pleasure of taking when working on my BSN.

[KneKno]

Creative writing--helps writing a narrative after the crisis is over, when all you have is five 2 or 3 word notes and two times written on a paper towel. And, from that, have to figure out what you did over the past 3 hours.

[nerdtonurse?, BSN, RN]

Abnormal Psychology. Taught me we're all warped in our own way...*grin*

And, oddly enough, European history; nobody learns from the past (and our non-compliant COPD/CHF/DM/ESRD folks don't learn from their own past, either).

[island40]

I had to take an operations management course for my BS. Helped me to have compassion when materials needed, i.e. gloves in my size, were not available. Also helped me to give suggestions to improve the system instead of just griping about it.

[NeoNurseTX, RN]

Psychology

[RetroReactive]

I am not a nurse yet, nor have gotten into my nursing classes yet.. but I think Psychology would help A LOT because it helps you understand different cultures and how they do things. It teaches you that in some cultures- eye contact - is very important, so as a nurse, you will learn that giving eye contact will make your patients feel more welcome and safe.

That was just an example. Psychology is a very good subject to study while in nursing courses.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Microbiology. Yes, it's a science course but it's not a nursing course per se.

The reason I chose this is that for the very first test, our instructor gave us over 200 medical/scientific prefixes and suffixes to learn, and that's all he tested us on for test #1. He said that we may hate him now for doing this to us, but we will thank him when we get into nursing school--and beyond--because knowing what these prefixes and suffixes mean will explain so much to us and make things easier.

And he was absolutely right :)

[itsmejuli]

Life 101

Being a "mature" student my life experiences has taught me a great deal about people and myself.

[stripec30]

As a male nurse I'd say my 'Psychology of Women' class has been the most useful.

[elppaym, BSN, MSN, RN, APRN]

I would have to agree with a lot of the ones repeated already.

Typing class (mine was done in high school),

Computer classes to be at least proficient on the computer. Depending on your position...Excel for scheduling and accounting (my first undergrad is in accounting/management). Spanish, and any other language that fits the population of your organization.

Anything that helps!

[Medic443]

any main stream foreign language.

[d'cm]

Abnormal psychology. Without a doubt the most useful non curriculum class I took and so helpful in diagnosing your supervisors.