Nur 102

Every nursing program is a little different, so it's hard to say exactly what you'll be learning. It's likely quite different from my Nursing (201) class when I took it.

General tips for learning the information:

1. Pay attention. Sounds simple, but it's easy to get distracted, especially if it's a long class.

2. Take notes during lectures and/or record them for future playback.

3. READ the textbook. It amazes me how many students think they can get by without reading (or even buying) the text book. Pay specific attention to the sections your instructor mentions in lecture. Do the practice questions in the back of each section.

4. Practice the skills. Practice at home, on your friends (non-invasive things, obviously) and take advantage of open lab hours if your school has a clinical skills lab.

5. APPLY the information. When you learn something new, imagine a clinical situation when you might have to use it. When you're at clinical, think about what you're learning in lecture and see how you can apply that information to your patient. Giving yourself concrete, real life examples will help cement the information in your mind. (Haha- concrete examples... cement the information...)

6. Come up with acronyms and short, catchy phrases to help you remember the information. For example, in anatomy class, I used the phrase I Passed My Anatomy Test to remember the stages of mitosis (Interphase, prophase, metaphase, anaphase and telephase).

7. Try different study techniques. Study as a group. Make note cards. Make your own practice quizzes. Read the text book aloud. If you're not learning the information using one method, try another.

8. Study in different places. I could never focus if I tried to study at my apartment or in my dorm room. My favorite place to study was Border's bookstore. I'd bring all my books, buy a hot drink at the coffee shop (hot carmel apple cider) and settle in for a study session. Find a place where you can focus.

9. Take study breaks. Studying for hours on end isn't going to be beneficial to you. Take some time to relax and refresh. Remember that you like nursing, and it's supposed to be fun. Staring at a book or notes for hours will just get you tired and make the information blur together. When I was studying at Border's I would take a few minutes every hour or so to read a children's book from my childhood.

10. I don't really have a number 10, but I wanted a nice, round number. Best of luck!

I actually meant on iv drips.... I've said in my other posts I hate math but want to try others ideas on how they remember or do their iv drip calculations...

Memorize the formulas. I'm slow at math but after 2 semesters I'm MUCH more confident. I just did LOTS AND LOTS of math problems of all kinds from all places.

Knowing what formula to start with helps, and I always write down what I need at the end (gtts/min, ml/hr, hours to infuse etc) So that I can check my answer and see if it makes sense. Once I got 230gtts/min, well there's no way that makes sense you can't count that fast, so I redid my math and found my error.

Record the lectures. Definitly saved me!