Nursing School Students...Is It Hard?

Nursing Students General Students

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I've been accepted into the 2009 fall program of my school. I've been reading some threads on here and I'm starting to get anxious about not only passing each course but getting good grades.

Are the classes really difficult? Are there a lot of fellow classmates who drop out of fail out?

Specializes in HCA, Physch, WC, Management.

In a short answer, yes! The classes are difficult and require a lot of studying and critical thinking that many students are not accustomed to or prepared for. Yes, many of my classmates dropped out, failed, or their grades were not good enough to progress.

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The advice here is great.. you should do fine if you put your head into it.. i find a little everyday goes much further than trying to cram it all in the weekend before.. My best advice is between now and the fall, get as many things out of the way as you can.. I did and it made my life easier. I have seen students fail out because they tought they could balance another few classes with home life, it wasn't the difficulty of the classes.. it was the time involved to perform well in all of them. My nursing class is 8 credits.. and we do a 12 hour clinical shift. add on stuff like music, speech, or having to write and english paper.. no thanks.. I am so glad i burnt up a summer and crammed in 18 credits..before nursing.. well worth it to lose the added stress. - Ill never miss that summer.. but it has made the past 2 years of my life, and the lives of those around me, much better.

so, yes it's a challenge.. but more of a time management / priority skill than a IQ test. Do what they ask of you.. even if you think it's a waste of time..make a schedule and stick to it. it WILL all come together in the end.. and you will think.. where did the time go..2 years, *poof* gone.. how did I make it through??

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Congrats on being accepted into your program. There are a few pointers I would like to make about nursing school. First, don't go into the program with the expectation of having straight A's. Nursing school is stressful enough and having that expectation just adds to the stress load. Rather, you should go into your programs saying, "I am going to do my best to become a great nurse". I think everything else follows. There are students in my class who become upset when they don't get an A on an exam. Some even argue with the instructors to try to get them to omit the question so that it doesn't count against them. What I do is take a look at my exam, find out what I missed and understand why I missed the question. I don't make straight A's, but I can tell you that I hang tough with the straight A students when it comes to clinical and classroom theory. Nursing school isn't designed to be "easy". After all, you are dealing with people's lives. However, if you find yourself engrossed in the material and really wanting to become a great nurse, you will find it not difficult at all.

Since you mentioned getting straight A's, I just thought of another question. When you are a new graduate and applying for jobs, do potential employers really value those who had straight A's on their transcripts or do they not care so much?

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It's as hard as you make it, really. It's all up to how much work you put in and your ability to prioritize things. There's a lot of memorization and skills to learn, but if you practice and do your study time, review and work at things so you actually learn them and don't just infodump on tests, you'll really get something great out of it. :3

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Specializes in L&D/Maternity nursing.

I am a Direct Entry student and this week was our first. The course load in extremely intensive, but as far as difficulty? I dont think its anything all that unbearable to be quite honest. The course work supplements the skill and learning, and really helps it "stick" I think.

The best plan on action is just to stay organized and as on top of things that you can.

GL!

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Specializes in heart failure and prison.

I can tell you from experience, I just graduated last month and I did have some days that I was in tears, exspecially my last semester. This semester was brutal and it took a toll on me, I was so burned out and tired. Nursing school is very stressful, time consuming and sometime can be hard. However, doing well in class is very important. We had to have a 75 passing average and sometimes it was hard. But, it can be done. I used to do a lot of questions from nclex disc. Whatever the content was in class I did nclex questions and this will also help you prepare for your boards also. Another suggestion, when your school go on break, take your break do not start preparing before. My school used to get a 1 month break and I did not look over the next semester content nor did I do any questions. You are going to need a mental break. Good luck and calm down, you will do just fine.

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Specializes in Case management, occupational health.
the classes really difficult? Are there a lot of fellow classmates who drop out of fail out?

Difficult can not even begin to describe it. And yes many students drop out and fail out. We started with 100 students and on the first day they told us to expect half to not make it to next semester. We have 42 still in the class, more failed than quit but we lost more than half. I find that very upsetting becasue it is extremly hard to get in to our school and then half don't make it. In my opinion if they know going in that half the students are not going to make it then why don't they let more in?

I am in a very tough, competitive program so yours may not be as bad as what I have experienced.

You can do it, just be dedicated, study every day, do all the reading, use an NCLEX book to study, and most importantly realize that nursing school is not like anything you have every experienced before, so don't expect the study skills you used in the past to be sufficent. I think the biggest mistake that new students make is that they think that if they are good students and was always able to just listen in class before and make A's that they will be able to do that in nursing school. I have seen many 4.0 GPA students get less than a 60 on their first nursing test just because they were not expecting things to be on the test that were not discussed in class. Nursing classes just touch the surface of the things they want you to know.

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Can someone go into detail about what is so hard and difficult about nursing school? It all sounds so general, please be specific.

I've heard some say that the actual material isn't hard, it's just the amount of work expected to learn in a short period of time. Others say it was hard to balance a family/job, just so many different factors. I talked to someone who said that to them the program wasn't hard, just make sure you are organized and have a set program to follow by not missing a beat.

Maybe it just depends on the nursing program all together, perhaps the level of difficulty varies from school to school. Just like some colleges have harder courses on average than others.

I had an employee who was a foreigner, who claimed she found a nursing program that made it *easy* so other foreign students like her could understand and pass. She would not reveal what school it was. The last time I saw her, she said that she was a few months from graduating. So who knows..

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Specializes in HOSPICE.

stressful and yes i mean stressful on every part of your life! lots of reading...i have 1-2 tests weekly, clinicals, and sooo much more. if it is really something you waNT YOU CAN DO IT. my program only accepts 80 at a time and since august we have lost 10 r/t bad grades, poor performance, not completing tasks on time, and poor attendance. good luck and keep your head high!

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I think it's wise when looking at different NS to look at their dropout rate and their NCLEX pass rate. The best schools will have very low dropout rates and very high NCLEX pass rates. What this says about the school is that the instructors are truly invested in making sure you "get it" and are there to help you be the best nurse you can be.

My school is very much this way and although I'm in an accelerated program and it is crazy busy, I feel that pretty much all of my instructors would be there for me to "talk me off the ledge" so to speak if I got really overwhelmed. They are constantly reminding us that we can come to them anytime we need help with anything. Most of them gave us their home phone number.

What is hard is definitely the amount of material. A year ago I took A&P I, Micro, and Chemistry in the same semester and really that was laid back compared to what I'm doing now. Procrastination really isn't an option. You have multiple tests, quizzes, assignments, and check-offs every week. But, it's really interesting and fun stuff to me so I don't hate it...I just feel guilty about the fact that I'm not available to my kids as much as I would like to be. Only 11 more months though!!

Now I gotta go study like crazy!!

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As far as details in how it may be difficult.

You have to learn A LOT in a short amount of time....A LOT of memorizing and critical thinking.

Tests, quizes, papers, care plans...all can be due around the same time depending how your classes flow. There's just a lot expected of you compared to other major programs and you have a lot of expectations you have to meet as well.

I remember I had 2 big tests, a quiz and a careplan due all in one week...my program typically tries to avoid this happening but did not catch this one.

The way I see it is there is not much time to just sit down and expect to just go to class and go home and then go to class and go home again and relax...theres always something you have to do...so its more go to class and go home to study/read/ practice some skill/do a paper, etc.

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I am In my last semester of a 2 year nursing program. While I found the academic portion to be challenging, I believe that organization, staying on top of the readings, and studying, studying, studying has helped me stay on top of this program. Now, for clinicals, I have found this to be an area that can be at times frustrating and stressful. Our program likes to have its students take on 4 patients with all the care that RN's are required to do by the end of 3rd semester. Talk about swimming in the deep end fast. I'm not sure if Med-surge nursing is quite for me but nursing is such a great career in that there are so many options out there for the picking.

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