So I just finished my first semester of Nursing School. Got an A in skills, a "well deserved" B in clinicals, and then there is theory. I worked my butt off studing for this class and ended with a 79.4%. I thought surely my teacher would give me the fraction of a point to make a B...but she didn't! I know I know you get what you get but man does it burn!! I am in the same category as those who may have slacked off to earn a C. I don't even get a C+. Bummer. Oh well, at least I passed I guess.
My first semester was definetely an eye opener. If I can give any advice to the newbies coming on board it would be as listed below:
Don't panic! We were given the same old tired speech that nursing school will run your whole life but I am here to tell you it didn't. Now let me clairify, it is what you make of it. If you want to make all A's then yes it might consume your whole life and that is fine. I made a personal choice to not allow this to happen. Which leads me to my next point...
It is possible to have a family while in nursing school! I am a mom to an 18 month old and a wife and I did not lose any time with my family this semester. I made a personal choice to not study at home or on weekends to instead spend it with my family and it worked for me. May that be the reason I got a 79.4? Perhaps, but again it was a personal choice. I only studied at work (because my job allowed it) and did okay.
Find your groove early on in the game. What I mean by that is find the best way for you to study and stick with it. The material goes really fast and you have a lot thrown at you with clinicals, skills, and theory. The faster you get a grip on your learning style the better off you will be.
Be as helpful as possible in clinicals! The more you offer yourself, the more the nurses will offer themselves to you. Don't be afraid to ask questions but make sure they are good ones. If you have the opportunity to look up the answer first do that and if you don't understand ask the nurse. Often times they would answer my questions by asking questions but if I wasn't prepared it made me look bad. :)
That is really all I can think of right now! Good luck everyone, congrats to those graduating, and congrats to those finishing their semesters! One down, 4 more to go!
Thanks for all the advice. I definitely don't want to just settle for C's but in the long run I can only do my best with what I got. Most graduate programs do interviews to get in and I feel so long as I am honest and straight forward with where my priorities are then I will do just fine.
As for next semester, sure it will be difficult but to say it will be any harder than this one, I am not sure. I haven't crossed that bridge. I can say before I started nursing school all I heard was about how hard it is, but to me honestly I don't think it is that hard. I made that grade again because I failed one test, but did exceptionally well on the rest so I don't think what I am doing is not working for me.
That particular 2nd test for any newbies was the toughest for me. The first test was a lot of "fluff" so to speak. Along with the fluff we didn't really have a lot going on in skills or clinicals. The 2nd test however had more inforamtion than any other test (and for the record the foundations class as a whole did so bad they allowed a retake, but I didn't know it well to begin with and didn't think it was worth falling behind to relearn). Throw on top of that material our first skills check off and clinical in full swing. I was just not mentally prepared for that work load. I learned my lesson however and did pretty well throughout the rest of the semester.
Thanks for everyones advice and good luck to those of you starting your journey. I am already counting down semesters until I am done. :)
Specializes in orthopedic/trauma, Informatics, diabetes.
C's may get undergraduate degrees, but not advanced degrees. You may wish to go to grad school one day....I'd hate for you to not get into the school of your choice because of the decisions you make now. Family is important, and you should definitely make time for them. However, nursing school is not forever and some sacrifice could help secure you a spot in the future in grad school'
We explained that to our instructors. They kept preaching: get your BSN! we told them we had no chance to get into a decent school if an 86.4 was a C. the schools don't know the grading scale! We did get them to ease it a bit for our second year and I managed an A in one class. But the damage was done. I do have a 3.83 from undergraduate degree and a 4.0 in grad school. But the nursing GPA sucks. I am in an RN-BSN program and my goal is no lower than a 3.75. (4.0 is better :))
Nursing school is hard. As I have said before, two plus two does not always equal to four in nursing. It is time consuming, and some way or another it does get in the way of family time. Some have suggested to be happy with a C, but really, most of us want to pursue higher levels of education in nursing, so if one gets Cs all the time, it will be tougher as one goes along.
Critical thinking is not easy for some, just take your time when reading the test questions and eliminate off the bat the ones you know are incorrect, then consider the left choices carefully.
Mommy_RN1211
236 Posts
Thanks for all the advice. I definitely don't want to just settle for C's but in the long run I can only do my best with what I got. Most graduate programs do interviews to get in and I feel so long as I am honest and straight forward with where my priorities are then I will do just fine.
As for next semester, sure it will be difficult but to say it will be any harder than this one, I am not sure. I haven't crossed that bridge. I can say before I started nursing school all I heard was about how hard it is, but to me honestly I don't think it is that hard. I made that grade again because I failed one test, but did exceptionally well on the rest so I don't think what I am doing is not working for me.
That particular 2nd test for any newbies was the toughest for me. The first test was a lot of "fluff" so to speak. Along with the fluff we didn't really have a lot going on in skills or clinicals. The 2nd test however had more inforamtion than any other test (and for the record the foundations class as a whole did so bad they allowed a retake, but I didn't know it well to begin with and didn't think it was worth falling behind to relearn). Throw on top of that material our first skills check off and clinical in full swing. I was just not mentally prepared for that work load. I learned my lesson however and did pretty well throughout the rest of the semester.
Thanks for everyones advice and good luck to those of you starting your journey. I am already counting down semesters until I am done. :)