3gheel

Our school used Judy Miller videos from time to time and I loved them. She has a way of explaining the patho so that the s/s of a disease process make total sense. I used a lot of what I learned from her videos as background knowledge while studying for NCLEX. I thought the questions were good, but I think I benefited from answering many more questions from other sources (NCSBN, Kaplan, Saunders). I absolutely agree that understanding a certain system is the key to understanding disease process. And then once you understand those two, the nursing guidelines, or teaching, or medications - whatever - those will tend to fall in place for you. Good luck!

I used Kaplan on a home PC with Vista. Worked fine and I'm no computer wiz, or anything.

I also had heard that there would be drugs I had never heard of, but I actually had heard of most everything I encountered on NCLEX. Maybe even knew what the drug did for the most part. I really believe I saw both names of the drug on the test. I believe that's what our Kaplan instructor told us, too. The problem comes in that I perhaps didn't study the SE or nursing teaching quite enough for all of the meds I saw. That's when the "educated" guess happens - you know enough to perhaps rule out two answers, then you have to chose between two others. Still, with several questions like that I passed with 75. If you have a good solid working knowledge of most major drugs and if you had clinicals where you had to study, teach about, and give many different medications (and you recall a lot of that knowledge), then you should do fine. I had plans to study meds really carefully - long lists, lots of side effects, etc., but in the end I ran out of time and most of my drug knowledge came from what I learned in school. I did study thoroughly in school and for clinicals and that helped me the most. Good luck with it!

I think I took about an hour and a half or so from going into the building to going back to my car. I test quickly, but I made myself slow down. I took the tutorial because I was nervous and needed to settle down. Then I reread all questions/answers and then rechecked again before submitting. I also completed the questionnaire at the end. If you test quickly, and if you get 75 questions, you should be out of there in under 2 hours. However, we've all heard stories of people getting many more questions than 75 and we have to be prepared if that's what happens. Good luck with your test!

I was hired on a telemetry floor at a large teaching hospital. I'm looking forward to starting in August, but I'm also a bit nervous/excited. I don't have an actual shift yet - it was just listed as "rotating" and it will be worked out as I get into orientation/training on the floor. I'm hoping to land in some sort of normal schedule, but basically I'm also just happy to have a job!

I don't have cable or satellite at my home, but my father has it at his house. I stayed up until 2 AM the last time I was over there watching medical shows! I could not stop watching because it made me think of things I had learned. I would be a total junkie if I had those shows to watch at home.

At my school, we may have all tried a bit harder the first few days, during orientation and all. But in the end, we were mainly in sweats or worse for most lecture and lab classes (unless for some reason our uniform scrubs were required). I felt like students tended to look professional at clinicals - made an effort to look pulled together. Certainly, though, this spring before I graduated I didn't take much time to get ready for lecture classes and I fit right in!

In general, those with good grades in my nursing school also tended to do well on NCLEX. I'm sure there were exceptions, but most with higher GPAs tended to pass. Most of those people also came into the program with high GPAs. In the end, though, I'm not sure there is as strong a correlation with high GPA and actual bedside nursing success. So much goes into good nursing than can't necessarily be accounted for by grades.

During school it's hard to beat Saunders. In fact, before my second year med surg tests I would sometimes do all of the online questions for whatever specialty we were studying. Helped me very much on exams to do that. La Charity is also very good, but somewhat harder than school tests. Still, I learned tons from it and it helped me to have basically completed that book before starting to study for the NCLEX. Kaplan is also very helpful for NCLEX, but not so much while you're in school. Still, if you can get a copy of their book you may find it a good review prior to exams and then of course, as you study for NCLEX their program and questions can get you ready for the big day. Again, their instruction on how to look at questions and consider the options will help you in school and on the NCLEX, but I also learned content answering so many of their questions. Good luck!

I believe the drugs were listed with trade and generic names anytime a drug was used in a question. Questions and answers seemed much more straightforward on NCLEX than on Kaplan - more like you either knew it or not. I had heard of all the drugs or procedures I encountered on NCLEX, but I didn't necessarily recall what I needed to in order to answer the question confidently. I did study infection control very thoroughly and carefully from the CDC website, and I did complete the La Charity book before taking the test. I had spent a reasonable amount of time on Kaplan, but didn't actually finish the q bank. Best of luck on the test! :wink2:

I agree that Kaplan, while very helpful, is also just a bit harder than the actual NCLEX. The Kaplan questions are more complex, while NCLEX seemed to me to have thoughtful, but more straightforward questions. I think if you are in that "60 or above" range, you should feel confident. I hope you have great luck on the test. :wink2:

I was recently at HPR in a student nurse capacity and found the employees to be happy working there. In general, the nurses I spoke with had only good things to say about their jobs at HPR. Their new nurse orientation program seems thorough and it looks like it's planned to give a new nurse plenty of time and training to become proficient. I would certainly consider working there if I lived a little closer to High Point.

I'm 42 and will be 43 when I graduate. I was in my late 30's when I thought about nursing school and began taking classes necessary for admission. My feeling was that I had another 25 to 30 years that I wanted to work and I wanted a job that was more inspiring than my mid-range administrative job I had been in for over 10 years. I've enjoyed (almost) every minute of nursing school and I am looking forward to graduating and then working as a nurse. I also realize that as I age and perhaps decide that bedside nursing is too stressful on my body, I can then move into other areas of nursing. The possibilities really are endless. Also, I am in an ADN program with a prior BA in Education. I still have school ahead of me to get to an MSN, and yet I see other student nurses my age and older who are forging ahead with a new career in nursing as well as continuing their education and working toward higher degrees. I'm excited about all I have ahead of me, which certainly beats the dread I had in the past, coming to work every day in a job that was going nowhere. You can do it!