longdistancehiker

I wish I knew how to make study groups (and studying, honestly) effective from the get-go. To me, study groups should basically just be a SMALL (4 people max, in my opinion) group of people going over an outline, main concepts, and working some case studies. I also stressed way too much in the first semester.. thousands of students have done it before, and you can make it through as well. Don't be afraid to utilize sources other than your text book. Last semester I utilized a lot of Youtube videos and learned/performed leaps and bounds better than previously. Khan Academy, Registered Nurse RN, and USMLE prep videos (these were my favorite, because I like to know nitty-gritty details), were the most helpful that I found. Last but not least: take at least 1 day for yourself each week and do something you love. For me, that's hiking, and it is one of the most important parts of my school routine. It will keep you from burning out too early in the semester.

Great to see I'm not alone! Haha. Our professor is great - she is one of my favorites out of all I've ever had - but it just doesn't interest me that much. Had the last clinical for it today, though, and the final on Thursday.

Any other guys hate maternity class? I feel like an alien in there - like I don't know what's going on at all. I've got a solid B, but the whole thing is so uninteresting to me that I'm having trouble forcing myself to study for it now that the end of the semester is here. I guess I'm not really looking for advice, just wondering whether or not this is common. There aren't many guys in my class. Ironically, my girlfriend (soon-to-fiance) is going to be an OB/GYN. lmao.

BookishBelle, I've always been a straight-A student as well, and it took until finals week of my first semester to get over that. It sucks, but I just remind myself that it's actually hard and it will all be okay.

Nursing school has definitely been tougher than the rest of my academic career, but it also isn't as difficult as some have told me (just my opinion). There are people in my cohort who live, breathe, and eat nursing school - those are the type that told me how insanely difficult it would be. Some of them do really well, and others barely pass, but they all seem to have a lot of anxiety and have trouble controlling it... that is just my observation though. My advice is to try and find what works for you as soon as possible. I spend a decent amount of time reading the material and studying, but I know if that's all I do I will be miserable and fail. I make time to go to the gym, take the dog out for long walks, and cook good dinners for my girlfriend and myself (she doing 3rd year rotations for med school and has no life). It's all about balance, man. You've got to find your own. Also, some of your instructors will probably get on your last nerves. It happens. In that situation I keep my mouth shut (mostly, until I'm venting over a beer or two with my friends in the program) and just do what I have to do. My only complaint is that I can't go backpacking every weekend now like I did in prereqs haha

Hey yepooda, Merry Christmas! It's good to see someone else from the cohort on here. That orientation left me a little more confused than I was beforehand, but I think (as others have already stated here) that our military experience will lend itself well to creating structured environments for studying and the like. Enjoy your break, and I'll see you in class!

Thanks for the advice and well wishes, everyone! Lots of great thoughts have been laid out on here. I am pretty stoked; we have our orientation in six days. MuffinMan, I'm going to have to actively work on that... because it's how I usually mess things up in my classes. As for the study buddies/groups, I have a solid platonic friendship with a girl who was also accepted into the program. She's part of the reason why I did as well as I did in the anatomy courses. We think the same way and it definitely helps when it comes to studying. She's hot, but I recognized the impact she had on my grades early on so I've always restrained myself. Maybe after school.... lol

Hey guys just wanted to give a brief introduction; I've been reading through the forums on and off for a while, but decided to finally make an account. I'm a 24 year-old USMC vet living in Fredericksburg, Virginia and will be starting the RN program at Germanna CC come January. I'm pretty stoked about this, as I've only been doing prereqs/courses towards the BSN for the last year and a half. If anyone has any advice they want to share, or you're in the area, please let me know. As you can guess from my username, I like backpacking. Anyways, it's good to be here and I appreciate everything I've already "learned" from reading these forums.

Great summary! I took a similar approach, but not necessarily by choice. I screwed around this summer (drank way too much) and got a D in an English course because I didn't do all the assignments. Dropped my GPA to a 3.5, and the program I was planning on applying to requires a C or better in all *prerequisite* courses. Well, I thought that the D disqualified me from even applying, so I didn't even bother talking to the advisers again until 2.5 weeks before the cutoff for application. Long story short, I'm a big dummy and took the TEAS two weeks after finding out I was eligible to apply. The only "studying" I did was skimming the ATI TEAS VI Study Manual and answering section questions, as well as taking 3 practice exams from the McGraw Hill book (there were five total tests included). I should have prepped more, but I did really well besides the science section. While I was pickling my liver and brain this summer, I also took A&PII and earned a low B (normally A+ student). Obviously I missed a lot, and it did come back to bite me because physiology was the only section of the test I wasn't comfortable/confident with. Breakdown of my scores: Reading: 94 Math: 93% Science: 75% English: 99%In the Reading section, I mixed up things like theme/main idea. In the Math section, I am pretty sure it was the fraction multiplication/division that screwed me up (I've been out of high school for 6 years now, and haven't taken math since). In science, the physiology questions really tripped me up. There were some things that were familiar, but my alcohol-induced amnesia prevailed and I didn't do very well. Chemistry was also a weak point here. English was pretty easy for me, and always has been... If you aren't good in this section then I definitely suggest looking over things like subject-verb agreement, the participle stuff, etc... I honestly don't know what the hell participles are, but I read a ton growing up (and still do, sort of), which taught me the correct ways to compose sentences. All that being said, I feel like with more time I could have done better. Science was the only section I really did poorly on, which felt like a punch in the gut... but I still scored a high 80-something percent (if you do the math on the figures I listed it will be slightly higher-most of the percentages were .something, not whole numbers; I rounded up on here), and was in the 97th percentile.

Jesusgirl15, one of my study buddies applied to the program in the spring and was sent a letter informing her that she had not been accepted. When she reached out to the program (I can't remember whether it was by phone or email) she was told why.

Well, what was your advising session like? Do you live in one of the priority counties? How much of the Allied Health Science program did you complete? What is your GPA? What is your Science GPA? What were your TEAS scores? I have no clue why my letter was mailed so early. I was told that there are a certain number of spots that are guaranteed admittance before any others, but was never told what the actual criteria was to meet that... I know it is a combination of all the requirements. After that, students are admitted according to how many "points" they earned for each requirement. So if you could get 5 points max for having all of the Allied Health Science courses done, you would get maybe 3 or 4 for having them partially completed. I have a friend who did not hear whether or not he was accepted until the first week of May when he applied in the Spring. Don't worry; you should hear something within a week.

The letter is dated November 17th. I left the area on the 16th to hike in the Smokies for a week, so I just saw it this morning.

I applied for Spring '17 and got an acceptance letter in the mail. Still haven't received an email though. TEAS overall: 97th percentile, English: 94 percent, Math 94 percent, Science 75 percent, Reading Comprehension 97 percent. 3.5 GPA. 3.85 Science GPA. All courses on the recommended list completed. Live in Spotsy. I did have a few bumps on my background check, but they are misdemeanors and I think the time since they occurred was long enough to overlook.