Overwhelmed nursing student

xcitednsgstudent87 · Oct 25, 2009

Hi, Im in my first year of nursing school.Trust me... Some of them girls are not making the grades like they're portraying. Some are like you or even worst! If you can, ask for fewer hours at your job. I just work 2-3 days a week 8 hr shifts with a C (80.1) avg. Not the best, but my head is above water. I believe you can handle the 15hrs, just stay FOCUSED Good luck in the future. :)

dannibee · Oct 25, 2009

All I can say is hang in there. It can be a little overwhelming at first until you get used to the flow of things. If you can afford it, quit your job. I wish I could but I have a mortgage to pay so I have to work 24 hours a week. I'm in my 3rd semester (of 4) now so it IS possible to work and go to school. It just takes some time to work things out. I'm luckily able to study and do school work at my job as a secretary in a hospital. Don't worry about what everyone else SAYS they're doing because most of them are probably not being completely honest. Take care and good luck. :)

newbebop, ADN, BSN, MSN · Oct 25, 2009

Hang in there! I think the working depends on the person. But yes if you can, cut back. especially if you are struggling with grades. But like a poster said above, don't assume the others are all doing well. It is HARD work and LONG hours, but we can all do it.

If you have the long commute, use that time if you can. I don't record lectures, because I never have the time to re-listen to them and the acoustics are so bad. but I have started recording myself reading over my notes. Then i have a condensed version that I can listen to in the car on my long drive. I drive 45+min each way for school. It is just one more way for me to take the information in and it has been helping.

Best of luck!

Laurie20000 · Oct 25, 2009

If you are in a hard program, more than likely you will fail a test or 2. Its defeating and awful, I know. After I take a test, I shake it off. Its over. Good or bad. All you can do is concentrate on the next one. Make an appointment w/ your instructor and ask for help with test taking strategies. Not only will it help you, but it will help your instructor know you as a person, which will help in the long run. The biggest thing to remember is "Its not over til its over". I'm in my 4th semester, and every semester there are people hanging on the edge, and they make it somehow. There is 1 girl in my class that always fails a ton of tests and them jams out the final by some grace of god, and passes.

Hang in there!

tlc2u · Oct 25, 2009

what do you feel like your biggest difficulty is?

do you struggle with answering test questions correctly?

if so get the newest edition of saunders nclex and fully absorb the chapter on test taking strategies. then make a short list of the test taking strategies on 1 piece of paper. use this list to do practice questions until it becomes automatic for you to think through questions using these strategies.

look through tne saunders book and find which chapters that correlate with your school studies and practice those questions. mark an x in pencil by the q's you answer incorrectly and put the number of the test taking strategy there that would have helped answer the question. after you do enough questions you may see a pattern to why you are answering questions wrong.

or are you struggling to learn the important content?

when i was in school i tended to overstudy and i was a very visual and hands on kinesthetic learner. so listening to lectures and reading was harder for me to retain the info.

if you struggle to sort out or learn what is most important in the material. pay close attention to what the questions in saunders is asking about the material and that may give you a little focus on some of the important things.

are you a visual learner?

if you are like me and are a visual learner go to your local bookstore and look at the small flip books with nursing content. many of these have the most important nursing info condensed into small charts etc. and some are done with pictures. also there are books of nursing made incredibly visual and recently i saw an nclex book with a lot of visuals as well. or take a look at memory notebooks of nursing books of nursing visuals.

or are you struggling with reading your textbook chapters?

if this is the case then maybe your over studying like i did. i thought the key was to read the chapters in my textbook word for word and try to kind of memorize it all.

i learned that i needed to get a good "big picture" of what the chapter was aboput before trying to read the chapter. to me it was like making a puzzle. if i want to make a puzzle quickly and complete it well then i am not going to just heap all the pieces in the middle of the table without seeing the picture on the box and then grab the first few pieces and try to put them together. for me when i was starting at the beginning of the chapter and reading straight through then that was like putting that puzzle together without any strategy.

to overcome this i had to learn to look through my textbook chapters and my saunders nclex book read the headings in the chapter, look at any boxes, charts, pictures etc that correlated with our lectures and class notes and then look over the prctice questions. then make me an outline of;

the system:

the disease processes:

the meds:

the labs:

the nursing diagnosis or considerations etc.

and then build my knowledge from there.

you may already be doing some of these things. but i hope there is something here that you find helpful.

BellasMommyOBRN · Oct 25, 2009

you sound a lot like me. sometimes i wonder if i am the only idiot in class that didn't do very well on tests. nursing school started off by hitting my ego big time, since i had a 4.0 gpa (both from my previous science degree, and from my nursinf pre-req's). it's a whole new world that i am having to get used too, and i just learned that i had to cut myself some slack. i am doing the best i can to make sure i understand the material, as well as that i can perform safely for my patients. i longer stress about getting a's all the time.

good luck :) put your heart into it and you will be a nurse in no time.

FLmomof5 · Oct 25, 2009

Karmen,

My best bud in NS failed our first 2 psych-nursing tests (2nd term). He was beside himself and wanted to drop out of the program. A couple of us took him in and worked with him throughout the rest of the course. We practiced HESI tests and quizzes and case studies on the evolve website and talked about rationales.... the upshot is that he passed the next 2 tests, the final and the Hesi-psych! He passed the course!

Look into who you can buddy with. Sometimes studying with someone else, even over the phone, makes all the difference!

tlc2u · Oct 25, 2009

I think buddying can be a great idea. However when Itried to buddy with someone I thought maybe they understood some things that I didn't and vice versa. So I thought maybe we could help one another. When we studied together I realized they were as lost as I was.

Many times I struggled to understand a concept. Like Acid Base etc. I wished I knew then as much as I do now about allnurses. I should have come here and asked for explanations or done a search here for the subject. There is a wealth of information, excellent explanations and links to helpful websites here on allnurses.

Sometimes it may be how an instructor is explaining something that you don't understand. Or maybe the textbook has too little, too much or too complicated information.

I have been taught Acid Base by 2 different instructors. The first one went round and round with this for 3-4 weeks and none of the students were getting it. At a different school with different students learning acid base for their first time this instructor explained it in such a clear way, she spent 15 minutes with it and "all the students GOT IT".

Sometimes we just need to here it or see it in such a way that the light bulb goes off.

jpearl119 · Oct 25, 2009

First of all I want to agree with everyone else and say hang in there!!

You still have time to bring up that average and it's great that you are recognizing early on that you may need some extra help or study time rather than waiting until it's too late. Personally, I quit my job right before school started and while it hasn't been the easiest of times financially, I have been getting solid A's and B's on my tests so far. I think over winter break and next semester I will work again, but maybe cut down your hours or take some time off if possible until you get a good study routine down.

Also I know how easy it is to get caught up in what your other classmates are doing, but try not to if you can. For a while I felt like I was way behind because everyone knew so much more than me, but pretty soon we'll all be at an even level, and you will too.

Best of luck :)

Nursingstudent2188 · Oct 25, 2009

I too feel overwhelmed. A lot of the people in my class who aren't overwhelmed...they aren't doing their homework. They are behind in the readings. Some of them still do fine on the tests, but I think it's going to catch up to them. We just need to hang in there I think. I keep telling myself millions of people have already gone through all this, and succeeded, so we can too!