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Wow, that's impressive those of you that are going straight into upper division. I'm a senior in an BSN program... I'll be 21 when I graduate, so I guess I'm pretty young. My nursing class is very young/nondiverse compared to the amount of 2nd degree nursing students these days. There are about 100 of us, the oldest is 23, and only 1/100 is married. I guess the biggest challenge for me has been trying to get the whole college campus experience (making friends, etc.) and keeping myself sane, while keeping my grades up and stuff. It's hard, but definitely doable. I really respect the older students that have so many responsiblities that they have to keep up with and are able to be successful through nursing school... that's a lot to carry. I plan to get a few years of experience and hopefully return to school to become a nurse practitioner. I'm currently in the process of applying for jobs, and im also thinking about going ahead and starting some of my prereqs for grad school next year. Scary!

The first time i tried to start an IV, it was my first morning of clinicals in 1st semester at 6am after drinking way too much coffee. I was scared to death and was shaking so bad that i couldn't do it myself and felt like i was going to pass out. Luckily, my instructor was awesome and grabbed my hand and practically put it in for me. It still made for a pretty traumatic first day of clinicals, but i laugh about it now. Needles are no big deal to me anymore. I don't think that I did anything except for continued to put myself in situations where I was forced to watch/try IVs/injections. As long as you're willing to keep trying, i think it's just a desensitization type thing. Good luck with everything.

Research shows that you should go with your first answer unless you suddenly remember a specific piece of information that you didn't before. Going back to double check is never a bad idea, but unless you missed something like "except for" or "not", don't change your answer. My program actually has a policy that we can't go back on tests. (They're computerized). Their reasoning is that you only have one chance to get it right in the real world as a nurse, so they feel that tests should be the same way. At first I hated not being able to go back (when it was only for some classes), then I realized how much I second guess myself. The other day, something was messed up with the testing so they couldnt set the questions to 'one visit', so we were able to revisit, but i just knew if i even went there i would be tempted. haha. As far as C's go, I certainly don't think they're "horrible" (i've had my few), but I might try to change your study plan a bit. Usually the classes only get harder as you go through, so it's important to look over your weak areas so you're not behind for later. Sometimes, testing strategy like second guessing yourself also play into that though. You'll get better at taking nursing tests as you go though. :) Good luck!

I know my post was kind of negative, but I'm not one to ever not make the best out of a situation. I always try to get everything I can out of an experience. And I know that the overall impression I have of the units is not always indicative of every nurse. It's really more the fact of the matter. I just don't see the advantage of making us stay in town. I want to work in the town that's 30m away and most of the recruiters I've talked to say that they only hire new grads that precepted there. Also, this is just my initial reaction/disappointment, and it will probably wear off for the most part in a week or so.

So I graduate in May and a professor came in last week to talk to us about our preceptorship for next semester. Those of us who have not passed all of our HESI's with >900 were told we have to do our preceptorship in town and on a Med-Surg unit. Now I understand the Med Surg part, it's good experience and I probably would have chosen that any way because I'm not sure exactly what I want to do. However, "in town" is very limited. We have two choices of hospitals, one of them I feel like would just be a horrible experience, I did one clinical rotation on the Med Surg floor there, know someone that did their preceptorship there, and my boyfriend stayed there for a week one time. The nurses just don't care about the pts and they are rude to each other and students. The other hospital here is just very small and not much better. There is a BIG city with lots of good hospitals about 30 minutes away which I go to several times a week anyways- not a bad drive), which is where we do most of our clinicals now. I really feel like we are being punished for not passing hesi's. i just don't understand why it would be so awful to drive a little ways, or even stay in the next city. We don't have any classes or anything at the same time. I have studied tremendously for all of my hesi's and gotten within 10 pts of passing on all of them, but they don't want the number. They just want "pass" or "fail" And what hesi considers passing is 850 i think... but noooo not my school. I understand that they want to look good and prepare us for nclex and stuff, but I feel like we're being punished or something, if not by the rule, by the way they talk about it. They talk about us (the people that haven't passed ALL of their hesi's) as if we're a weak minority, when this is really >75% of my class for sure. My grades mostly A's with the occasional B. I guess I just don't test well on these big tests. I don't know how they are even going to get all of these people into these two small hospitals med surg floors. blah. So that's my rant. Is this common at other schools?

I was so nervous at first. On my first day, my clinical instructor decided one of us was going to start an iv first thing in the morning. And of course she chose me. I was shaking the whole time and couldn't stop for long enough to put it in. Luckily, she was good and jumped in and physically helped me. I was very nervous my entire first semester, but as I was put in stressful situations it faded for the most part. Now I feel relatively confident compared to then at least... it's only a little over a year since then. I just kept putting myself in situations that stressed me out and volunteering to do things that made me nervous (things that i was allowed/prepared to do of course). Sounds awful, but it worked. Also, just remember you are a nursing student, you're not supposed to know everything, even though some people may think so. I've started asking lots of questions. I make sure before I go into the room that I know exactly how everything is going to go as far as I can predict at least. When it was possible and it wasn't something that required an instructor I would bring another student in the room with me. Prepping helped to a certain extent, but I could never do it right before bed because then there would be no sleep and dreams of nursing things. haha. good luck!

I graduate with my BSN in May and I'm trying to decide what/where I'm going to go to school/work. I'm pretty sure I want to be a Nurse Practitioner and am trying to decide whether I should work for a year or two or go ahead and get a job, but start my prereqs part time. This way I would have about a years experience before starting clinicals at least. I've talked to CRNP's that are all for getting at least 2 years experience before going back to school, while I've found others that have encouraged me to jump right in. There's a good CRNP school nearby that doesn't require any experience. My main concern is that I've heard CRNP's are going to have to get their DNP starting in 2012 and I'm just not sure that I would want to have to go to school for that long before I could practice as a CRNP if I could go straight through right now. (Not that I wouldn't be interested in going back for my DNP later on.) First of all, is this DNP requirement starting in 2012 true? or is it a might happen? And would I have to just begin school before then or would I have to be finished? What do you think I should do? Thanks!

I'll be graduating this year, and I can think of maybe 2 lecturers that I didn't feel were very good. Many times it seems to me like the smartest ones are the ones that just can't seem to get their point across. I found that meeting with them on topics that I didn't understand well (after looking it over myself of course) was helpful. Some of them were completely different to talk to one on one than they were lecturing. This way they can address specific questions that you have. If they are just plain not helpful in general then I suppose that would be another story. You could always try meeting with other professors that you know. Surely there's at least a few that you've found to be good.

As my professors always say, it's 100% our responsibility to learn. They are just resources to us to help us figure out how/what to learn. I'm still not too sure how I feel about this though; it's the most challenging part of nursing school for sure. I don't do very well with textbooks. I'm in semester 4/5, and I'm just now kind of figuring out how to take what was taught in class and expand on it affectively without wasting my time. I don't know, surely someday we'll understand/appreciate those professors making us "independent learners". :)