Preparation advice for Nursing School

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I graduated from college about 10 years ago with an Associate degree in Architectural Engineering but will be going back in a year to start an LPN program. Needless to say I'm a little rusty when it comes to studying. What advice would you give me to prepare and maybe get a head start on Nursing School over the next year? Since I've got a year I was thinking of just getting a lot of books from the library that relate to the material in the curriculum. Thanks for any advice you can give me to help me have a successful academic career.

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Specializes in Flight RN, Trauma1 CVICU STICU MICU CCU.

Get a Medical / Surgical nursing text book and read it cover to cover, if you have a year to prepare for it.

Another good thing to read would be a "fundamentals of nursing care" book. Heck, I'll even sell you mine!

If you have a year to prepare, You should be working on anatomy / physiology, medical terminology and pharmacology.

The best advice I can give you about nursing school is to do your reading assignments before you go to class, so that you will be able to concentrate on taking light notes and paying attention to your instructor for points to look for, for the test.

If you have that much time, you should also look at doing some nurse's aide/ patient care tech work. Even if you only work 1-2 times a week, you will be comfortable with patient contact and you will learn some of the more basic nursing skills / duties that have to happen on a day to day basis.

good luck. PM me with any questions~

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Great tips, thanks.

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WOW! a year to prep? great.

if the school you are considering has entrance exams, do some studying to prepare you for those.

since you have a background in architectural engineering, math probably comes easy to you. but it's those pesky word problems, dividing fractions (remember the terms improper fraction, proper fraction, invert and multiply...), dividing and multiplying decimals, moving the decimal over so many places, ratio and proportion, and more!

math always came easy to me in school so when I had to do entrance exams, I thought, no problem. none the less, I did some prep work and realized that my math brain cells had gone dormant. a little refresher and I was back on track.

and that 'ole english grammar. similar word comparisons, word association, reading and comprehension.

so find out what test(s) the school(s) you are applying for require (HESI, TEAS, other) and get some study guides. alot of this stuff is also available online. they'll help alot.

all basic stuff but it's been over 30 (a-hem!) years since I graduated from college with an undergrad in agronomy, and quite frankly, some of this stuff hadn't even crossed my mind since HS.

good luck in your new quest!

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Specializes in Flight RN, Trauma1 CVICU STICU MICU CCU.

Really??

Don't sweat those entrance exams. I'm sure that part of your prereqs are going to be some of the classes I listed. If you get through those, don't even worry about the entrance exams... seriously.

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I'm in an LVN/LPN program right now and the one class I would advise any aspiring nurse to take before nursing school would be Anatomy & Physiology, taught separately or combined. Of course Chemistry and Microbiology are very close, but the A & P class by far keeps coming back to me. Fundamental nursing book and Med-Surg book is also great advice! Good luck!

Patti

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My friends that I talked to couldn't stress this enough..."take pharmacology and pathophysiology...before you get into nursing school!"

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Specializes in PICU/Pedi.

I second the posters who said to get a med-surg book and read it. Even Med Surg made Incredibly Easy would be good. Before I started nursing school, I bought A&P For Dummies, Microbiology Demystified, and a small medical terminology book. I feel like they helped - especially the med. term. book. I also bought a couple of books about the nursing school experience. One was How to Survive & maybe Even Love Nursing School, one was How To Survive Clinical by Kaplan, and one was The Ultimtate Guide to Getting Into Nursing School. These gave me a taste of what it would be like, trying to get in, and once I did get in to school. I have a tendency to over-do it on books, I guess, but I like to find out as much as I can about things that interest me.

I also recommend taking as many of your science courses as you can before you start the nursing courses. I have fellow students that are taking A&P II or Micro along with clinical classes, and they are really getting hammered. Plus, it's just that much easier to understand what they are teaching if you have already had your sciences.

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