Mardibug

Mariposabella - I always use Half.com. Maybe in undergrad I could have gotten away with renting, but I think for nursing you have to keep the books for NCLEX and even after you're practicing. The bill also paves the way for free online texts, btw. momandstudent - I really think all books do have ISBNs. Good for you for sticking it to them! That's ridiculous. TokyoRose - part of the bill says they have to post the details and prices for the books far in advance of that usual 2-week time frame, which is great news. Apparently, many profs don't know or care how much the texts they're making the students buy actually cost.

Great news for current and future students about the cost of books - sadly its coming a little too late for me A new law requires prices and other details of textbooks to be published in the course catalog so students have the time to shop online for a cheaper version, and also the useless multimedia bundles are a thing of the past. I occasionally used my drug book's CD, but I never had use for the others and they can drive up costs by $50. One more way nursing school is becoming more affordable! Yay! Read the full article here: Lawmaker to push for open online textbooks | eCampus News

I am in an ADN program at a community college. Our program is 2 years, so all the pre-reqs have to be done before you start (actually, I think they let you take a few things during the program, like Sociology, but I can't imagine doing that because I have my hands full with work and school. Anyway...) We take one class at a time, 2 classes per semester (so each class lasts 6-7 weeks). Each class consists of three components: lecture, clinical, and skills lab. A typical week varies SOOOOO much depending on the class and whether you're first-year or second-year, but I'll give you a typical day for me in my current class, Med-Surg 3 (2nd year). Monday - off (which for me means an 8-hour workday at my office job). study when I get home. Tuesday - off for real (I try to schedule at least 1 day off from work AND school if I can, for studying and doing errands and sleeping) Wednesday - off again (work), study for exam or review session the next day. Thursday morning - either a review session for the theory exam (multiple choice), or a supervised practice for a skills evaulation, or an actual skills evaluation (1.5 hour oral/practical exam with a partner where the lab instructor watches you perform skills like putting in a foley cath or cleaning a wound and/or asks you questions about it). Thursday afternoon - work, then home to read for the lecture. Friday - 5 hours of lecture with a 1/2 hour lunch break. Sucks balls. Saturday and Sunday - clinical days, at the moment 6:45am-3 or 3:30pm, but clinical schedules vary greatly. I only have it every other weekend, so weekends off I usually get to actually relax, or study for a test, or write a care plan. Oh, and there might be an observation day in there. At most I've had one per class, either OR or dialysis or a maternity class, whatever applies to the class you're in. Observation days are cool, even though you're by yourself. You typically shadow a nurse and get to ask as many questions as you want. A lot of the time its as good as you make it, you kind of have to be proactive. There may be a simple set of questions you have to fill out for your teacher, or just get a form signed, to prove you were there. There may also be a studyguide you have to read before you go. Clinical days, again, vary depending on the class. We are split into groups of 5-8 and each group is at a different site on a different day, so its not like your whole class will be at the same hospital. You have a clinical instructor, who may or may not be your lecture instructor. They will usually be with you any time you are giving meds or performing a skill (like trach care or tube feedings or chaning a wound dressing or taking out a foley or whatever). Sometimes, depending on the instructor, they may let you do that with your nurse ('your nurse' is the real RN who is assigned to your patient). I've had nurses that were super helpful and great, and ones that were downright *******. I've had ones that did everything before I got a chance to even ask to observe, and ones who never set a foot in the room, and everything in between. Sometimes you want their help and guidance, and sometimes you wish they would get the hell out and let you do the things your instructor is expecting you to do. I can take a damn manual blood pressure, leave me alone! Sorry, venting a little there. First thing in the morning our instructor gives us our patient assignments. He is lazy so he just gives us the same rooms every time regardless of what kind of patient is in them, but if you have a good teacher who cares about your learning experience they will give you interesting cases, or diseases they know you've never seen before, or even ask if anyone has a preference. Then we go get report from the night nurse and introduce ourselves to the day nurse. In my case, the day nurse helps alot more than my instructor, but sometimes its the other way around and you really rely on your instructor when you have questions or problems, and BELIEVE ME, you will have a million questions throughout the day. Next you go see your patient, introduce yourself, do your assessment, take vitals. Then you might go look up your meds so you know what your patient's getting and why and how and when, then you wait for your instructor or your nurse so you can give the meds. You might chart your assessment on paper or in the computer, and your vitals too. You might give a bedbath, or just provide the necessities so your patient can do morning care themselves. You would also change the linens, either as you wash them or when they've gotten up to wash themselves. By now its usually time for lunch, which is half an hour. Then you might have to be back for noon vitals and/or noon meds. Throughout the day you'll do or observe anything that needs to be done for your patient. The reality for me has been that the chance to do a skill we learn in the lab is pretty rare in clinical, but you do have it every once in a while, and usually its nine times easier on a person than it was on a mannequin in the lab. At the end of the day we have post-conference which varies depending on the teacher, but my best instructors just have us go around the room and talk about our patient and what we did that day so everyone can learn about all the patients and all the experiences other people had. You will start out with one patient and may, depending on your school or your class or your instructor, eventually get 2. I get 2 now and I'm finding it incredibly challenging. I don't understand how its possible to take care of 5 or 7 or 8 patients at a time. Its crazy. I hope I never have to do that. Some rotations are better than others, for sure. Maternity was greaaaaaaaaaaaaaat. You get to hold babies and feed them and rock them to sleep! And Pediatrics was almost TOO fun - I spent the better part of one whole day just playing in the play room with a three-year-old! The instructor makes a huge difference too. Almost all of mine have been nurturing, caring, very smart, and very good nurses. My current one...well, I should keep those choice words to myself. Not my favorite, lets say. Shouldn't be a nurse, you could also say. Lectures vary so much too. I've had some brilliant lecturers - funny, engaging, interesting, they almost made 3 hours go by quickly! And then I've had some that clearly didn't know the subject at all, or were just so boring and disorganized that you wanted to walk out in the middle of class and give them a dirty look while you were doing it. As for the amount of work...care plans are heinous. Do yourself a HUGE favor and buy yourself a care plan book. It will be the single most important book you have, the biggest time saver you could imagine. And save all your care plans so that you don't have to look up meds or labs you already looked up for your last patient. Some of my classes we did a care plan every week - they took me about 8 hours at first. Now they take around 4-5 hours. Some classes just had 1 or 2, but they had alot of extra stuff like interviews and hugely long histories. You may have a project or a presentation you have to do, or just minor homework like a case study or a few nursing diagnoses that only take an hour or two. The reading takes a long time, but you can ask your instructor how to target your reading so you're not wasting time on things they'll never ask about on a test. And studying for tests is time consuming of course. We usually have 11 lectures per class, 2 exams and a cummulative final, each 100 questions. They're usually NCLEX style multiple choice questions, but if they're "alternate format" (choose all that apply, or fill-in or whatever) then thats much harder. There's an art to NCLEX questions, so the biggest thing for tests is understanding and mastering those kinds of questions. Talk to your instructors, get a tutor, buy an NNCLEX review book, or all of the above. Hope that was helpful. Good luck!

GO FOR IT! I foolishly wasted hundreds of dollars on brand new books every semester because I was afraid the older books would have some glaringly wrong thing in there that would screw me up on a test. Then I finally realized that was ridiculous and bought a used book, older edition book this semester. No difference, except the price. I even have a 2-year-old drug book (like, THE drug book, that I use every single clinical day and for every care plan) and its never been wrong.