Nursing Classes: Are they really that bad?

eleectrosaurus · Aug 12, 2012

I've been reading through the forums a bit over the last few days, and have noticed a general consensus on the high difficulty level of Nursing school. I'm curious: How difficult are the nursing classes specifically?
You see, I already have all of my prerequisites and co-requisites for my degree complete. The only classes I will be taking from this point on will be my nursing classes. Which at my school means four 8 credit nursing classing taken sequentially over the next four semesters. Can I think of it as being comparative in difficulty and workload as last semester for instance, when I took Human A&P 2 and Microbiology for 8 credits? Or, will the Nursing classes be considerably more? Has anyone else been in the same position as myself and taken their nursing classes without any other classes simultaneously?
Thank you, JD

It's kind of like this...

harharhar

In all seriousness, its a different animal. It won't compare to your pre'req's. It was suggested that we read the material 3x, and for the most part I had to. For my 12 units I was studying about 6 hours per day, more on weekends.

Medic09, BSN, RN, EMT-P · Aug 12, 2012

It is interesting how people's experiences vary. Maybe the difference for me was being an older student with previous degrees. I was in a BSN program at a state university. For me, and some of my classmates, it wasn't rocket science. A person with reasonable intelligence could get through it in good shape with a modicum of effort. I hardly cracked a book, and still made Dean's List all but one semester. I actually wish I had studied more for the information I would have learned; but getting good grades and passing the NCLEX wasn't all that scary. I think many people blow it all out of proportion.

rubato, ASN, RN · Aug 12, 2012

It is interesting how people's experiences vary. Maybe the difference for me was being an older student with previous degrees. I was in a BSN program at a state university. For me, and some of my classmates, it wasn't rocket science. A person with reasonable intelligence could get through it in good shape with a modicum of effort. I hardly cracked a book, and still made Dean's List all but one semester. I actually wish I had studied more for the information I would have learned; but getting good grades and passing the NCLEX wasn't all that scary. I think many people blow it all out of proportion.

God, I hope this is my experience, but doubt it will be.

eleectrosaurus · Aug 12, 2012

I guess I should have qualified it further, there appears to be alot of variablity by program, general difficulty, grading scales etc. I'm certainly no dim bulb. 4.0 on pre-req's, previous degree. Most of my classmates were the same boat. All had to study like mad, everyone pulled mostly B's a few C's, A's just didnt happen.

If I can change my thought, Research your school to see how they stack up. Prepare for the worst.

stephenfnielsen · Aug 12, 2012

A few things that make it difficult:

1) A lot of programs make you take the whole year over if you fail a class (anything less than a C). This ends up creating $60,000 tests (if you fail you miss out on a year of RN wages). I don't care who you are, that puts pressure on you.

2) The fact that you can kill people when you make a mistake also makes nursing school more difficult.

3) And then there's the second guessing that goes on- it doesn't take a lot of time on the floor to realize that nursing isn't fun... don't get me wrong, I love nursing, but it is very hard work and is by no definition "fun" (at least for me). It makes you start wondering, "why am I busting my butt so hard for a career that I might not even like?"

Notice- I didn't mention the subject matter of the courses; that's hard too, but not too much difference than the pre reqs. I think the biggest difference is that there's less grade inflation in the actual nursing program vs the pre reqs.

Bottom line- if you are a person who is: a hard worker, somewhat smart, and has some mental and intestinal fortitude- you'll be successful.

JD87 · Aug 12, 2012

It is interesting how people's experiences vary. Maybe the difference for me was being an older student with previous degrees. I was in a BSN program at a state university. For me, and some of my classmates, it wasn't rocket science. A person with reasonable intelligence could get through it in good shape with a modicum of effort. I hardly cracked a book, and still made Dean's List all but one semester. I actually wish I had studied more for the information I would have learned; but getting good grades and passing the NCLEX wasn't all that scary. I think many people blow it all out of proportion.

I have been wondering, if it really may not be as bad for me personally as it may have been for many others. I can tell you that in my previous experience with the pre & co-requisites that I was always one of the top 2 or 3 students in the class and did it with less efort. That is not to say that the other students were inept in anyway. I'm not degrading their level of devotion to learning. I'm just different. I didn't need to take notes in lectures or read any of the chapters in the textbooks. I just paid attention in lecture, and then reviewed my instructors power points (they made them available) for a couple of hours the nights before the exams.

Thank you Medic09

jjrodriguez, BSN, RN · Aug 12, 2012

It depends on your program. Our program was great in that we had a Student Success program where students who are struggling can meet with a couple of faculty and peer mentors for questions. We have many resources available to us such as study guides, supplemental books and practice questions. Majority of the people in our class did fairly to exceeding well. I think the content itself is not difficult to grasp, rather the analyzing and application of that content can be a challenge to master. Also, time management is key as it is pretty busy balancing clinical hours, assignments and didactic courses.

BloomNurseRN, ASN, BSN, RN · Aug 14, 2012

It's very much a different way of putting the information together. In your other classes you were focused on one subject. In nursing courses you're expected to pull things from all of your knowledge for exams, not one simple subject. For example, there may be a question in which it's assumed you know all the anatomy and chemistry associated with the question and you have to put that in to your answer regarding a disease process. Yes, it's not overall difficult, it's just not as simple anymore. Also, it tends to be a lot of information in short bursts, which makes it harder to absorb and definitely hinders people at times. Good luck!

loriangel14, RN · Aug 15, 2012

I think the thing that people are not prepared or is the sheer volume of information to be learned.it's not that it is harder than other classes but the amount you have to memorize and remember how it all fits together makes it unlike any other type of learning.

loriangel14, RN · Aug 15, 2012

I have been wondering, if it really may not be as bad for me personally as it may have been for many others. I can tell you that in my previous experience with the pre & co-requisites that I was always one of the top 2 or 3 students in the class and did it with less efort. That is not to say that the other students were inept in anyway. I'm not degrading their level of devotion to learning. I'm just different. I didn't need to take notes in lectures or read any of the chapters in the textbooks. I just paid attention in lecture, and then reviewed my instructors power points (they made them available) for a couple of hours the nights before the exams.
Thank you Medic09

You may find that actual nursing classes are much different than the prerequisites.

Katie71275 · Aug 15, 2012

The difficulty is mainly with learning to think differently. Yes you have to KNOW the information but you also have to know what to DO with it and apply it to your patient. Knowing what normal ABGs are means nothing if you don't know that your patient needs to fix the problem.

I've made a B in every nursing class so far. It's hard but you get used to it. I love it!