OHN19

I hate to break it to everyone, but the mentality that nursing isn't a "man's job" still exists. Even as a student I got asked why I wanted to be a nurse because it's a "woman's job". I imagine it's a rural area thing.

I live in a city ~10,000. The closest drive for a clinical site was like 5 minutes. The furthest was around an hour and 15 minutes The only thing that sucked about the further away clinical was getting patient information the night before. It's pretty annoying driving an hour for 10 minutes of information to drive another hour and then wake up in 7 hours to drive back again. It's kinda the nature of the beast though. You learn to deal with it.

Depends on you. How well prepared your school ACTUALLY made you, how long it takes you study things normally, resources available to you, stuff like that. I graduated and took a week off from all school related stuff and then started to study. I studied for probably 2 good weeks (6ish hours a day) before I took my NCLEX. I used ATI and Uworld. Mostly Uworld though. It is a wonderful tool to help you study as long as you read the rationales. It costs ~$70 for 30 days access and it has around 2000 questions to go through. I just took my NCLEX today so I can't tell if you I passed or not, but it turned off at 75 and the PVT is saying I passed.

Some people just learn differently than others. Perhaps you just pick up on things faster than most. I was like you until maternity and then I wanted to pull my hair out studying. Just hope you can be like this through everything. Just be wary, I missed out on a lot of little things that other picked up on because they were constantly studying. It made studying for the NCLEX a lot harder.

Why be judged for 75 or say even 265? Why not 4000? Don't know. A bunch of people with a way better degree than I decided that a computer system could figure out if we are good enough to be nurses or not. It's all to ensure that we have the ability to provide quality care so no use complaining.

The way I understand it is if you Run out of time it takes your last 50 questions and if you got more than half right and were above the passing "line" you pass. I'm sure you can look at the NCLEX's site and find the exact answer though. Haven't heard of anyone taking the full time. Sounds like someone trying to cheese the system to me.

It's totally possible. I had done the same thing when I was in High School. Just be prepared for long days. Hospitals typically don't hire High School CNAs because of labor laws, but that depends on the state you're working in. If it's truly what you want to do, then go for it. Just make sure school comes first. You can't continue on to college if you fail out of high school because you're working too much.

My school forces us to do ATI in order to progress. The best advice I can give you is use quizlet. There are hundreds upon hundreds of people that have made note cards for ATI. It will help in the long run. I feel ATI tries to make you focus on the little things instead of the big things and that is what gets most people.

Most assessment stuff you just kinda have to memorize. I've never heard of any mnemonics for them at least. Repetitiveness helps with assessment stuff once you start clinicals/preceptorship/whatever you want to call it you'll do so many assessments that it becomes second nature. Don't sweat it if you forget stuff early on. I would hope you're not expected to be a full fledged expert at first.

Everyone deals with depression differently. I don't know much about OCD and anxiety other than what school has taught me. I do know that most schools are willing to accommodate you if you have special needs. If you have test anxiety talk to an instructor and see if they can help you out or let you take the test privately. Another thing that most Nursing students forget to do is take time to take care of themselves. Go out and have some fun with your friends every once and a while. If you get a break from tests for a week or two try to take it easy on studying. Maybe its the monotony of studying that is doing it to you. Change your study style and see if that helps. The only advice I have for the depression is to keep pressing on. Everyone gets in a funk sometime. Just keep trying as hard as you can and all will be well in the end.

I'm pretty much experiencing the same thing at my school. It's the problem with for-profit college. I've realized my education is suffering as well. If I wasn't a semester away from graduating I would turn heel and go to a "real" college. I don't have any real advice for you. You're going to have to pay your loans off no matter what. I say make the best of it. See if you can transfer somewhere that will accept your credits. Don't be surprised if you have to start from scratch though. Just keep on trying and you'll get where you want.

Although I passed the TEAS on my first attempt I can give you the advice that some fellow student talked about. Did they give you a print out of what you did bad on? I know my school gave me one and it showed some areas that I could improve in. My fellow students bought books and 2 even used the ATI TEAS prep thing. Be careful though these things can be expensive. I believe the ATI one is ~$200. I personally like quizlet. You just need to make sure the information is accurate. Can't tell you how many times I've looked at Quizlet stuff only to have myself questioning it. Another thing to know is a year is an extremely long time to be studying for the TEAS. I would also try to study other things such as basic sciences. I remember my TEAS had questions about plant functions and their cell parts. Since I've been in Nursing School I MIGHT have brushed over that in Microbiology, but didn't use it at all.