ready to quit...help

ugh i know EXACTLY how you feel, but i can't help with the patho thing b/c thats next semester for me

right now i'm in A&P (it wasn't a prereq for my school) and i feel like no matter how hard i try, it's never good enough. if i was meant to do this, shouldn't it come easier to me?

and leaving my friends was the hardest thing that i've ever had to do. i feel like i'm slowly drifting away from them, and it's only the first semester! i'm studying SO much, and i just don't know what to do anymore.

i'm hoping that this wasn't the wrong choice. i've heard it gets better after the first year, but i honestly don't know if i'll be able to make it.

Take a deep breath, you're not alone! I found patho to be one of the more difficult courses I've taken so far in nursing school. It requires that you tell a story and if you forget one tiny part of the story it can make it really hard to figure the rest out. Can you talk with your professor to see if s/he has any suggestions? Do you have access to a tutor through the school or separately? Do you have a study group you can work with?

You can do this, you may just have to shake/change things up for this class. Go get 'em!

I think you need to focus on the question of whether you really want to be a nurse. If the answer is yes, you'll get through the studying. If not, you'll likely still get through, but it sounds like nursing school only gets more consuming as it goes on. And then, the real commitment seems to begin when we become nurses. Most of us who get into nursing school these days can make it through (after earning high enough grades to get in), but it's just the big personal life questions that need answered from there. Only you can answer that, but I wouldn't expect NS to get easier. Good luck.

The other thing that you need to remember is that nursing school tests are a lot different than regular tests. I certainly was shell-shocked at the beginning of each semester when I took a new instructor's tests -- I didn't know that there were that many ways to ask a question!

When I was in your shoes, which wasn't too long ago, I went to the instructor and asked if she had any suggestions on how to study for her exams. Was there something that, as she looked at my tests, she could identify that I didn't understand? I also made a list of each question I missed, the kind of question it was (knowledge, application, analysis), and why I missed it (did I not read it correctly? did I circle the wrong answer, even though I knew the right answer? did I just not know?). From that, I was able to find a pattern and work from there to solve it.

Good luck, and hang in there. Patho is HARD.

PS: If you're going to a two-year or four-year school, why not try taking a business class? See if you like that any more than you like your nursing classes.