Question about the amount of studying you do

I am not in nursing school right now, but I did take a semester of it about 2 years ago.

I had an "A" in theory, and to be honest I didn't study 1/2 as much as other people did. You can't judge how you are going to get the material in relation to other people. But I do think sometimes that people, in my class at least, OVER studied.

They would pour over the books trying to "memorize" case studies and you CAN'T really know what to do in real life if you use that approach. It's more about understanding the process than it is memorizing step by step. That's the only way you are gonna be able to go in to a room and know what your pt/client needs.

This came easily to some of us, and seemed impossible to others.

Of course, you DO need to read your books, anything in the chapters you are assigned are game for tests. But my teacher was awesome in that she would specifically mention items of interest that we should spend more time reading. I almost never (except in the first few weeks after orientation and first few weeks of class) read every page that was assigned. It simply took too long and at that time my baby was only a few months old. I then just started reading the 1st chapter after each heading, and then skimming through to see if anything was catching my eye.

Another thing that helped me was downloading my books onto my laptop. My books (from elsevier) have a set up where you can highlight in your ebook and then have your notes sent to word so you can print them out, or just save them to look over for the test. Made my life so much easier!

In short, it's really just about finding what works for you, and going with it. I think they told us in orientation to expect to spend at least 2 hours a day studying... but I can't really remember. Try not to go by time, but what you are able to learn from the material.

Hi,

I have great retention but to get through all our reading and paperwork I study about 20hrs a week, 8hrs on Sat and 8 hrs on Sun plus 4 throughout the week.

About four hours of reading and studying each night. Papers, care plans, and other assignments generally take about 10-15 hours per week--maybe I'm just slower.

No your not slow.... I study a few hours a day and my careplans and papers take around 12+ hours per week. Even with all the studying I do am still only getting in the 80's on exams )last one was 84 . And other students study much less than I and they wind up with 94's 96's etc. It just comes easier to some people for some reason.... Oh well I'll just keep working my butt off! Only 5 weeks left in my 1st semester! Then a whole month off woohoo:yeah:

For geriatrics I skim the chapters. For foundations I read some chapters, skim others, and skip a few that don't interest me. For pharmacology, I read the chapters. In health assessment, I read what interests me. Normally, I do the readings a few days before the test, the night before, or whenever I can squeeze it in. I work, and work is my priority. All that said, they're upper level BSN courses, and I've got three A's and a B+ lol. I'm satisfied with that.

The studying depends on your current study skills. I have found that I spend 1-2 hours a day every few days going over information. I have started studying in groups too, that helps the information to sink in better when you see it, someone reads it and others teach it when there is misunderstanding. And each class is different. I would just be careful with working and school. Some people are fine with it and others suffer because work takes not only the hours you work, but time to get ready and rest after.

I comute 1.5 hours each way to and from school, and I have found that carpooling helps because someone can read information out loud while someone else is driving. Also, you can get a microphone application for the itouch and record yourself saying information. This helped me with studying medications for clinical days.

Good Luck!