jessjay

im not sure if we use ATI, we do a lot of Hesi so im not entirely sure. the book we use is apart of evolve so i have those resources which seem to only help with the exams. i feel the same way about medsurg right now! we have over a week to study for our first exam which is on fluids electrolytes and acidbase balance and i feel like i know it better than i did in funds but i feel like its simple.. haha after my first semester, ive realized that practice questions help me a lot but im just curious as to what to expect from the course.. so i know how you feel!!

so i just started my second semester at chamberlain and it includes med surg and pharm. i was just wondering if anyone has any advice? my program is accelerated so ill have an exam each week for 16 weeks in medsurg and one exam a week in pharm. ive bought several study guides for medsurg but was interested if anyone has some helpful hints or tips for doing well... medsurg is feared at chamberlain bc instructors, students ahead abd even other faculty say this course ia very difficult.

i know of many girls in my program who were gone the first 8 weeks. and lost a few more after the second session. im doing the best in nursing school than i have at any other school. im loving it!

i started in july and am in an accelerated program. i just finished my first semester and i have to say that i have adapted. i start medsurg monday so im very nervous for that but im ready. ive prepared myself with purchasing study guides and noticed that you can NOT be unorganized! organization is key yet i still havent been able to adapt to using an assignment calender/notebook. i seem to think i can store everything in this little brain of mine which ive done a pretty god job at so far... im excited to keep going, a little stressed after finding out that a girlfriend of mind did not pass, but all in all i managed to get all Bs this semester(which is great for me!! especially in an accelerated program - very proud of myself!). so excited for whats to come!!!!

i review with questions. i get books offline such as the test success books, fundamentals success, medsurg success, etc. and they are all practice questions with rationales which help alot! i also like to look online for different ways of looking at it. but these questions helped alot with the exams

I am a chamberlain nursing student in illinois. i want to start off by saying that in high school, i litterly (no joke) graduated dead center in my class. I was an average B-C student in high school. I didnt like school at all, would rather hang out with friends or work. I attended my local community college after i graduated and for the first 3 semester, i again, was your average B-C student. It wasnt until i had an instructor for Chemistry who had a form of autism, when i learned how to teach myself and how to really really study. his class started out with 40 students, but final exam time, about 25 students were left and only 10 passed the class. out of those 10, i was included and received a B in the class all around. i went on to getting an A in a&p and an A in microbiology. After i was denied entrance to my community colleges nursing program (my TEAS score was around 78 & my gpa was like 2.97), i knew i had to go else where. thats when i found chamberlain and fell in love. the only thing i was super scared about was the program at chamberlain is an excellerated program. instead of full 16 week semesters, we had 8 week semesters. Chamberlain also offers their BSN in 3 years. I was able to transfer 50 credits out of 80 from my previous school, which was amazing! (the first 2 years i slacked so by the time i wanted to crack down on my studies, i was told i was a few classes away from applying for nursing school and a few away from receiving my associates in science, so i went both ways)When i started at chamberlain, my first class was a health and wellness class that wasnt part of the program but was a nursing class. needless to say, i bombed the first exam with a 64%. at chamberlain, you need to maintain a 76% on all exams before the soft points (assignments, quizes, projects, etc) were included. this class only had 3 exams. i worked my butt off to bring my grade up but unfortunately, i was not able to pass the class with a 76%, instead, i failed with a 75.8%. man, was i bummbed! i felt like such a failure, but that didnt stop me. i ended up retaking the class (with a few peers who aslo failed, which brought my self esteem up a few) and passed with a B+. our grading scale is shortened as well. a B+ starts at 92%. I started my first semester of nursing school this past July and successfully passed all 3 classes (fundamentals of nursing, health assessment class and patho). like i said before, our program is excellerated so in 16 weeks, we have 2 8 week sessions, which both have a total of 4 exams and 1 final. so in 16 weeks i took 17 exams. during finals week of the first session, we had what we called return demonstrations of lab skills we learned in lab, basic CNA/PCT stuff except we learned suctioning, foley insertions, wound cleaning, etc. from left and right, all i heard were girls (and some men) were failing. Students who were straight A students in high school and their other colleges were failing out horribly. they were dropping like flies. i was so scared!!! but, i was able to pass with 2 B's and a C. second session was a little different. I started out the session getting C's on all exams but was able to pull all 3 grades up to a B by this past week (finals week). Even during these finals, girls were droping like flies. i made friends with a girl who is a couple years younger than i am and who prides herself on her intellegence. she was a straight A student in high school and when she finished her prereqs at chamberlain she made the deans list quite a few times. Even this last session, she ended up failing her first exam, got her first C in a class and was mortified. all in all, you cant get hung up on the grade. As long as you pass, you will still have the same education and know the same material as the one who passed with an A. i know gpa is important for master programs and even scholarships but if you dont need the scholarship, just try and do the best you can. if your school offers a tutoring center, GO! i have learned our center isnt that great, so i picked one of their brains and releaized the study packets they give us are books i can find online. these study guides are AMAZING! they helped so much because my problem wasnt the content, i knew the content like the back of my hand (for the most part), it was the questions! those tricky nursing questions that were the reason i failed my very first nursing exam. I like to go by the moto "Cs get degrees!" because truthfully, being an average minded student, this accelerated program has made me go crazy! i want to strive to do better than a C BUT, i know that sometimes, its very unrealistic for me, myself, to get an A. I worked very hard for my grades, and im very proud of them. ive never studied this much in my life but its worth it to me. a lot of girls didnt go into the program with the mentality "this is going to be hard! no social life, no nothing except nursing nursing nursing"! and honestly, thats what you need to do. you need to mentally prepare yourself for this. if you dont, youre not going to succeed. i have a girlfriend who failed with me on the first nursing exam ever and made it all the way until this week where she failed again. but she also didnt make the same amount of time for school that i did. she thought working was more important and her boyfriend, who lived like 3 hrs away, was more important. i see my boyfriend everyday BUT i study like crazy when im with him. he hates it but he knows its what i need to do to be successful. dont get too hung up about the grade, as long as your passing youll be fine. students who were straight A students in highschool are learning this the hard way. dont get stressed! just study, use your resources and know your material. practice questions and you will do fine!!!!! good luck!!!

i was a similar situation. though my grades have never been spectacular, i did not get accepted into the RN program at my community college. but I then turned to Chamberlain College of Nursing. Though its expensive, i am so happy i made this choice. it wasnt hard to get in, i took a HESI entrance exam which as MUCH easier than the TEAS. almost all my prereqs transfered over and started the program a semester after starting at the college. im just finishing up my fundamentals semester and im so happy i made this choice. it is very hard. i failed my first nursing class at the school because i as not prepared for the type of questions on the exams. and trust me, i am not fully prepared but still find myself struggling. dont be discouraged, ever. theres going to be times where you just want to quit and rip your hair out and go ape ****, but you have to plow through that. i havent even made it to medsurg and i cant even count how many times ive said "i failed, im done. i failed nursing school". its tough but the main thing thats helped me is making school my number one priority. i have no life, no friends and barely have a relationship with my boyfriend and family. my nose is either in a book or im sleeping. i always feel guilty if im not studying. but using resources that are offered to you are amazing. using websites, fourms, and picking the brains of nurses you know or are friends with helps so much! i just discovered the books my tutors use i can purchase online so im taking full advantage of that. dedicate the 2 years you have getting your degree to nothing but nursing. it will be soo worth it. another thing that drew me into Chamberlain was it was bachelors instead of an associates. LOVE IT! good luck :)