Crumble

I've never seen a school set up a study group for students... you need to talk to your fellow classmates and set up study groups yourself. In Anatomy and Physio (we take them separately at my school) I set up the study groups myself by recruiting the people at my table. When we met up I would go over the material while the group listened and I would take turns quizzing people in my study group on the material while the others listened. It seemed to work pretty well and we all got A's or B's. I feel that being the "teacher" of the group is an advantage because you get the material down better, so I got an A in both classes. I'm doing the same thing now in Micro, and have 100% in the class... so study groups can be a very powerful tool. Most people have trouble studying by themselves, myself included. One big thing is to take advantage of open labs with your study group. The above advice about taking a short break every 30 minutes is good advice. After about 30 minutes people just start tuning out, and are no longer retaining the information, short breaks will give your brain time to store the information and be ready for more.

Have a cemetery near your house? Kidding! While nothing will be a good substitute for holding the actual bones in your hands, there are some good apps for iPad that give you a 3D view of the skeleton. Look up Visible Body, is the one I used when not in open lab. However, bone markings are another story, you really need to be able to touch and feel the bones to recognize a lot of them.

I know everyone likes online classes nowadays because you have google to help you with tests, but I would imagine having a bunch of online science prerequisites would get you denied almost everywhere. It's way too easy to just google "Humerus bone markings" in the middle of an online anatomy lab test, and get the answer, instead of actually memorizing the stuff. Half-assing a history class by taking it online is one thing, but the stuff in these prerequisites we are expected to know. Don't think for a second that the people looking at your application don't know that everyone cheats with google in online classes. You're taking a big risk taking your science prerequisites online, imo. Sorry to be so blunt.

Don't know if it's an option, but you can get the lenses in your eye surgically replaced. My mother had really bad eyesight and just had the surgery done on both eyes about a month ago and she has 20/20 vision now. She said it cost her about $100 and insurance covered the rest.

A lot of BSN programs that I have researched in my state don't even require CNA, it seems to be mostly ADN programs that require it. It's probably a better idea to go straight for BSN in the first place, and if you are you most likely won't even need the CNA.

With any kind of test, always study something enough that you can quiz yourself without your study guide (having the topics memorized), and can answer the questions with no hesitation (having the definitions/answers memorized). Answering with no hesitation is very important, if you have to think for a little bit to come up with the answer, you don't know the material enough. Do the above and you will ace pretty much any test. I've never done CNA, but I've done anatomy, physio, chemistry, calc 1 and 2, physics 1, etc. and that is what got me A's in everything. You can memorize anything with enough studying.

Seriously, take pre-requisites at community college. That extra $70k of debt will haunt you for years.

I was forced to eat a full steak before they let me in to my nursing program...

Are you applying to only one school?

I agree that taking 1 hard science course at a time is a good idea. At my school we take Anatomy and Physiology separately. I took classes like psychology, health, etc. concurrently with both and got an A in both. They aren't that difficult if you put in the study time. One thing that is really helpful is to get a study group together in your classes, and meet up a few times a week to go over everything.

Retaking a class because you got a B is crazy in my opinion. My school won't allow retaking a class if you got a C or better.

You are 22... are you serious?...

I took anatomy and physiology separately, but I would say the lecture was tougher. With lab you can visually see everything, and is helpful to take a lot of pictures with your phone. With lecture it's about understanding the functions, which can be a little tough to wrap your head around some of them.

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah I'm in California and assist.org is very helpful. So far I've taken Statistics, General Chem, Anatomy, Physio, Psych 101, Philosophy, finished my required English and math classes, as well as all of the random general ED classes. Still need to take Micro, Organic Chemistry, Nutrition, Sociology, and Public speaking before applying, which will be done in the spring and summer. These should open up 7 CSU BSN programs that I can apply to.

I've been doing research on the different nursing programs and their prerequisites, and they all seem to be different. They all require anatomy, physio, micro, general chem, statistics, psych 101, and beginning child development. However then the schools all start to differ from each other. Some schools require nutrition, others require intro to organic chem, others require more child development, etc. So I'm trying to get an idea of what most other prenursing students are taking. Are you just taking the common prerequisites and applying to schools that only require those? Are you taking all of the secondary prerequisites so you have more options? Any insight would be awesome! Thanks in advance!