Students NCLEX

NCLEX, My story.

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Well, I figured it was the right thing to do, so here it is....

I started nursing school in Fall of 2010. My freshman year wasn't exactly the best as far as grades go, but hey, I was just figuring out how to "college". I joined the ARMY ROTC program in the spring of 2011, and I knew I had figured out what I wanted to do with life. Anyway, I began to get my act together from that point on. My freshman year GPA was a 2.9, fast forward to senior year, 3.4. I had gotten it as high as I could.

I had to take an extra semester due to scheduling conflicts, but the extra semester I had no nursing classes. I was completely done with nursing, just taking some gen. eds (Philosophy, American Civ.) I knew that being out of nursing classes was going to kill me in the long run. I bought the NCLEX Mastery App for my iPhone in the summer and tried to keep up with questions. Sometimes, i would go weeks without doing any.

In December, I knew I had to get my butt back into gear with studying. I wanted to take the NCLEX in January so that I could get a duty station and get away from Pennsylvania. I found out that the ARMY would pay for a $500 Kaplan review course, so of course I was going to take it. I ended up taking the Classroom Anywhere online course. I learned so much from the class, but in the end it kind of felt like a waste. The Kaplan tree worked well, for kaplan questions. I tried applying them to my app and didnt have similar results. The Qbank was nice i guess, but the amount of typos and incorrection answers pushed me away. It was free for me, so no harm done.

I scheduled the test 2 weeks after my Kaplan course, and I have never been so miserable in my life. I stayed up studying (and burning myself out) every day, every hour, and every second. Bad choice. My girlfriend (who lives with me) was annoyed, I was irritable, and nothing was going well. My scores on the Qbanks were in the 50's, and I was getting certain that I was going to fail.

Test day arrived, and I had to drive an hour to the testing site. I get there, expecting to have to wait another half hour since I was early, but I was shuffled into a square room where 4 other people were testing. I go through the instructions, and begin my test. I blanked. I started going through them, and I seemed to get one after another SATA. It became apparent that I wasn't going to pass. My test stopped at exactly 75 questions, I raised my hand, made some jokes with the test monitor, and walked out feeling defeated. I rushed home, and looked up how to do the PVT, and bravely attempted it.

I passed?

The trick was showing that I passed. I didn't believe it. I tried again after 2 hours, then 4, then 6 hours. Finally I tried at 24 hours, all the same results. I still refused to believe it. I waited and checked my states licensing site, nothing. 48 hours later my girlfriend and I decided to pay for quick results. It confirmed it. I had passed. A giant weight lifted off of my shoulders. We both literally cried. My life was just about to begin. Our life.

I am still waiting for my license from the state, since they do not post on weekends. But I have conquered the nclex. It feels like a 4.5 years war has just ended.

Victory was mine.
:up:

ChazzW

ChazzW

161 Posts

Congrats RN & welcome to the RN murse community. :yeah: The acquiring of an RN License is a huge accomplishment. Enjoy & congrats again.

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