Nursing Students Approaching Their Second Semester Nursing Students!!

chinacatSN · Jan 11, 2011

Although we all study differently some tips i would suggest would be 1st: stay organized and always prepared! 2nd: flashcards are an excellent way to generalize and memorize material definately if your a visual learner like me! 3rd: studyiing in groups seems to be more effective and helps you to get better understanding of the material sometimes! 4th: I use a memo board also to map any conceptual ideas i get and is very helpful! hope i helped! Good Luck this semester!

Thanks! I like the memoboard idea. Group sessions do NOT work for me, LOL - we usually end up wasting time and talking rather than studying. We're all somewhat socially deprived and no one else understands what we're going through, so when we get together, we usually end up venting and talking about NS - though we usually get SOME studying done. I used to do the flashcards - they DO work - I guess I just slacked off on doing them. My problem is that I remember things really well when I read them, but it's really difficult for me to read them when either 1) there's so much reading to do that it's physically impossible & 2) the reading is so boring that it puts me to sleep.

Thanks for your help!

chinacatSN · Jan 11, 2011

OMG I thought i was the only one who prorastinated. It's good to know that I'm not the only one who struggles with that. For this semester...which officially begins tomorrow, i plan on making a study schedule every Sunday night for the week. If I right it down and see how my time looks for the week I am less likely to procrastinate and wait until the last minute. I also hope to fit some excercise time in!!!! Good Luck to everyone

EXERCISE! Me too. That's number 1 on my list - just after school (studying, assignments, etc) and family...and SLEEP.

Junebugfairy · Jan 11, 2011

I do an hour on the elliptical everyday. My trick is to listen to lectures while I am exercising. I record lectures during class and play them while I work out. I have found that listening to the lectures again on the same day truly helps me to solidify the material. I listen to them a few times and read my books. My study habits are good overall, but it never hurts to try harder.

layleebug · Feb 6, 2012

Chinacat-

This is an old thread but I wanted to reply that amazingly, my second semester has been a little bit better than last so far, but with more material and more work to do

Anyway, we take Med-Surg this semester and are using a clinical support program to help us and it really is kind of like a SIMS program. It's called "Virtual Clinical Excursions" by Elsevier/Mosby. It's an interactive software that is set in a hospital, and you choose your shift time, which patients to take care of, get a verbal report from previous nurse, etc. Then you have 45 min to take care of business- see your patients, do physical assessments and administer meds. It's like you have to go to the actual med room and pull IV's and meds from drawers- and you can also use the study guide to help go through the patient's charts and practice what to look for.

This doesn't replace our lab time, because our lab time is for hands-on (we have a lot of simulated mannies and equipment because our school is set up exactly how a hospital would look). But it is a nice thing to practice with- kind of like the video game format you mentioned. You could probably order it online if you find it.