CCat

I start my clinicals in the fall. What if I suck?

Oh my gosh, what a fantastic post! I start nursing school in the fall and I waver between excitement and nervousness. It's late (studied for Microbiology for several hours) but I'm going to go through all the advice and make a list of things I should get together to get me on a great - at the very least, prepared - start. Thank you!

I think calling a nursing student an overachiever is a misnomer. We have to make good grades and that sometimes means putting in a lot of time studying and making the grades. It's not trying to overachieve...it's trying to make it as a nursing student so we can become successful nurses.

I've actually lost a couple of friends over school. I even had a friend tell me how boring I've become. Yeah, I might be boring but at least I'm at home studying and working towards making a better life for myself rather than wasting my time, money, and health drinking at bars every night.

That's awesome...congratulations!

I can see both sides of this situation. On one hand, every student has the right to ask questions but on the other, there are those who constantly asks questions and then go on to argue with the teacher thereby wasting other students' time. There was this girl a few terms back who was exactly like that. No one had a problem with her asking questions at first or arguing with the instructor but she'd do it /all the time/ and it disrupted the class a lot more than it was useful to her or anyone else. Granted the instructor should've been better about speaking with her and answering her questions after class but she (the student) had no consideration for everyone else who got the material and just wanted to move on. So it /can/ get annoying. I respect other students' rights but they also have to respect mine.

I'm actually going to do it AP1 & AP2 at the same time in Winter Term to bring my GPA up and so I have the maximum number of points when I apply into the program where I go to school. I was trying to juggle working /a lot/ and taking other classes the last two terms so I only got Bs in them. Yeah, I should've known better. I figure I'd do okay taking them together because I already took both classes and it'll just be a matter of reviewing along with managing my time better. Plus, I already have notes and flashcards so I don't have to worry about making any study tools, yay! However, if your case is different from mine, I wouldn't recommend taking 1 and 2 together. They're already pretty hard on their own. Maybe you can do it if you weren't taking any other classes at all - even easy ones like Writing or Math. Good luck!

Quantify "dirty work"? Do you mean cleaning up messes - poop, vomit, etc? I'm only in pre-nursing but I don't think you can really get away with not doing "dirty work." I'm going to sound preachy but if you really can't stand to do "dirty work" then I don't really think nursing is for you. Being a nurse is about caring for your patients and that sometimes includes cleaning up after them. Good luck finding out what you want to do.

Um, well, there really is no easy way going about getting a BSN. You have to take pre-requisite classes, apply into the program, get accepted into the program, get through nursing school, and then graduate. Your very best bet would be to talk to a counsellor at the college/university you're planning on attending. That's what I did. I was getting sick and tired of being unhappy at my jobs so I randomly decided that I'm going to go back to school and do what I always wanted to do. I went down to my local community college, talked to a wonderful counsellor, enrolled, and am now neck-deep in all these intense (but fun!) classes.

Wow, quitting is a /big/ decision to make. What are you going to do? Why not think about taking one term off, work full time or get a second job (I don't know you or if you work or anything so I'm just throwing ideas out here) and save up a lot of what you make to pay for school? I knew of this one girl who was on academic probation because she dropped one too many classes and who was denied financial aid but was able to get it back after paying her tuition out of pocket and getting good grades in her classes. It can be done. It might suck to have to work all the time and pay for classes (which can be very expensive even in a community college, I know!) but you shouldn't have to give it all up. Try not to be discouraged. If you want to be a nurse badly enough, you can do it. I'm curious though - how/why did you fail? Did you have some personal issues you had to deal with? If you were going through a rough time, maybe you can speak to someone to have your grade changed to an Incomplete or something. I don't know. Good luck though.

Hey, congratulations! If you've already poured this much effort into getting into nursing school, it makes sense that you'll pour as much into graduating. I'm still working on my pre-reqs and I know exactly how you feel about giving it your all.

I bought mine at the student bookstore. It's a small silver-colored Olympia that I bought for like $53 or something. It's a bit spendy but sooooo worth it, IMO.

I agree wholeheartedly. What matters is how you deal with it, which IMO would be to not even deal with it. Ignore gossip - don't start it, don't listen to it, don't participate in it. Go home and write about it in your private journal, talk to your partner, write about it on your blog, etc. I'm going off on a tangent a little but this reminds me of what one of my classmates told me once. I felt a little insulted after it all happened but I chalk it up to her being paranoid so I just feel kind of sorry for her. We were studying muscles and she asked me a question about something and I answered as honestly and as best as I could. After explaining things to her, she went on to say that she doesn't trust anything anyone tells her because everyone is so competitive that they'd lie and give the wrong information to their classmates just so they'd fail. I was floored. This was right after I answered her question about something and it felt like she basically called me a liar and untrustworthy even though I took the time to help her! Needless to say, I don't really interact with her anymore. We're still on friendly terms but, wow, that was a little much.

I couldn't live without mine. I would seriously drop a class if for some crazy reason my instructor won't let me have one in class. I can't take notes fast enough in class but with a dvr, I can get home and write down anything I've missed or make sure I have the right information. I even listen to my lectures again and again if I'm doing something mindless like cleaning. It really helped me!

I love it here. I can't imagine living anywhere else. Well, Hawaii maybe. :chuckle