Pre nursing vs nursing which one is more difficult?

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Which courses did you find more difficult and challenging in terms of time spent studying , stress level etc..., the ones in pre nursing section or the ones in the nursing section. I am finishing pre nursing and it has been really challenging and just wanted to have a glimpse of what nursing courses are like....

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Specializes in Hopefully Labor and Delivery.

Noyesno hit the nail right on the head...LOL If you thought that A&P was hard (just an example) wait until you start med/surge. Nursing is defiantly harder and it takes a lot of time and dedication. Many many sleepless nights studying, careplans, homework. Having a grading scale where anything below an 80% is failing. It's a tough job, nursing school. But it is defiantly worth it.

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Specializes in ER,Surgical ICU,Neuro ICU, OR.
It's a tough job, nursing school. But it is defiantly worth it.

What confuses me is that most nursing students say that nursing is hard, and most nurses say that the job per se is hard but ''IT IS WORTH IT''. Why it is worth it?

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Specializes in Emergency, Pre-Op, PACU, OR.
What confuses me is that most nursing students say that nursing is hard, and most nurses say that the job per se is hard but ''IT IS WORTH IT''. Why it is worth it?

Ask yourself this: Why did you decide to invest time, money, and effort into all the prerequisites without even knowing if you will get accepted into a nursing program?

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Ask yourself this: Why did you decide to invest time, money, and effort into all the prerequisites without even knowing if you will get accepted into a nursing program?

I sooooo like this answer.....very philosophical!

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Specializes in ER,Surgical ICU,Neuro ICU, OR.
Ask yourself this: Why did you decide to invest time, money, and effort into all the prerequisites without even knowing if you will get accepted into a nursing program?

Honestly just because an ADN in nursing takes a short time and the pay is good. Some people usually nursing students say that they did it because they love nursing and helping people etc... I mean I appreciate these things but I consider nursing as a job that is supposed to allow me to have a decent income.

The only thing that bothers me is that most of these nursing schools don't let you know what you have to expect but you have to find out most of the info by yourself as you go by visiting forums like this for example.

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Specializes in student; help!.

If you go into ANY job strictly for the money, you will grow to hate it in record time.

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Specializes in Telemetry.
Honestly just because an ADN in nursing takes a short time and the pay is good. Some people usually nursing students say that they did it because they love nursing and helping people etc... I mean I appreciate these things but I consider nursing as a job that is supposed to allow me to have a decent income.

The thing I have heard from nurses, again and again and again, is that if you are going into nursing for the money.. you will hate your life. Every nurse I know has told me that nursing is something you have to have a true passion for. The passion is what makes it "worth it" for people. They have told me that if they didn't have the passion for nursing, it wouldn't be worth it.

I'm not a nurse yet so who knows if that's true.

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Specializes in ER,Surgical ICU,Neuro ICU, OR.
The thing I have heard from nurses, again and again and again, is that if you are going into nursing for the money.. you will hate your life. Every nurse I know has told me that nursing is something you have to have a true passion for. The passion is what makes it "worth it" for people. They have told me that if they didn't have the passion for nursing, it wouldn't be worth it.

I'm not a nurse yet so who knows if that's true.

Well I don't think those people would be still there if the pay isn't decent. A CNA is still caring for people but is not as much preferred due to low pay. So yeah I believe that you should like what you do but at the end of the day it is just a job that has to support you. I think a prepared nurse with great skills is much better than a caring and loving one with poor knowledge of the medical profession.;)

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Well I don't think those people would be still there if the pay isn't decent. A CNA is still caring for people but is not as much preferred due to low pay. So yeah I believe that you should like what you do but at the end of the day it is just a job that has to support you. I think a prepared nurse with great skills is much better than a caring and loving one with poor knowledge of the medical profession.;)

I'm not a nurse yet so I can really only go off of other things I've heard and read on this board but a lot of nurses actually don't think the pay is decent for the amount of work they do. What happens if you're one of those people? Before you go into something, it's easy to say "Oh 28 bucks an hour sounds like great pay!" but if you're juggling 6-8 patients, constantly overworked, you may think that you're worth a lot more than that 28 bucks an hour you thought was so great.

A prepared nursing with great skills is better than a caring and loving one with poor knowledge, but a caring and loving prepared nurse with great skills is better than both of them right? I do get what you're saying though, and I think the best thing to do is both, do something you love and still be paid enough to survive. Some people go the extra mile and omit pay all together (ie: teachers of course). As long as you're not one of those people who thinks your too good to clean poop and stuff and you can fake kindness then I think it's your choice.

You might love it more than you ever thought you could when you start doing it. For me nursing wasn't specifically my calling but health professions interested me and after researching all the different health care careers, nursing fit my personality best. I'm fully aware of the difficulty people are having with finding jobs as new grads but to me it's worth it because I'm interested in the career. I say it's not my calling because if I didn't get accepted to my nursing program, I probably would have switched to a different health profession major. There are people who don't go in it for the money and wind up hating nursing so there's never a guarantee.

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Guiltysins - I think that's a great post for someone who's not on this side of the bed yet, so to speak. You really seem as though you've thought it all through and know what your priorities are and where you want to go with this. Good for you! I'm impressed - especially given your age (not trying to talk down to you - I'm not that much older that you are - but I see so many 20 year olds who have no idea, you know?).

I don't consider nursing a "calling" for me either - this isn't really what I saw myself doing with my life (what I did see I don't know!). But I know that I now can't picture myself doing anything else. And where I lived before I came back in the Air Force - RNs made an average of $25 an hour - and that is NOT a lot of money, believe me, especially not when your health insurance premium is $300 a month. I was working on grad school apps when my app to the USAF RN corps got accepted, mainly to raise my pay to something more lucrative.

I knew the pay was crappy going in. :)

As for the faking kindness, as long as a nurse was civil to me, if he or she is technically clean, I could care less if they're "kind" or not. You know? I think that's what you mean.

At any rate, great post. You show an amazing amount of maturity. I think you'll make a great nurse.

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Specializes in ER,Surgical ICU,Neuro ICU, OR.

Anyway I think this post has deviated from its original purpose. So guys how would you compare pre nursing and nursing courses which one was more difficult?

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As others have said, nothing in nursing school in of itself is all that difficult (pathophys has its moments, but nothing terrible).....the volume of material is intense.

So, the material in both pre-nursing and nursing classes are pretty equitable....however, the experience of nursing school was much more difficult.

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