Second semester jitters/anxiety

[sadieb95]

Hello everybody, hope you all had a wonderful holiday season. I'm hoping to get some advice/encouragement for my second semester of nursing school. I am in a 2 year ADN program that is notoriously very rigorous in my state. I feel very lucky and proud to say that I ended my first semester in great standing with my clinical instructor and a 90 average, which is apparently quite a feat according to the dept. head. However, I feel as though I really burnt myself out by the end of the semester. I do unfortunately struggle with a GAD, and have found it becoming more bothersome in recent weeks. I am starting to work myself up with the invasive thoughts, such as "the first semester was a fluke, there's no way I can do well in the rest of the program". They really like to scare you with saying things such as "it gets much harder and time consuming every semester" and "if you don't study for a minimum of 20-25 hours a week you will not be successful". I didn't find this to be the case this past semester, because I pretty much never had 20 hours in a week to study and still did pretty darn well. But if anyone is going to cling onto statements like that, it's gonna be me. I'll be doing my OB/pedi/Geri rotations this semester, which I'm super excited for. But I'm scared that I won't be able to keep up the good work, even though I've always done well in school. I guess to me it seems as if I'm not supposed to succeed in nursing school, therefore I'm afraid to hold onto the hope that I will. Any advice? Do you feel like you get/got more accustomed to the tests and such as the semesters went on?

[FutureNurseInfo]

I will be short:

1. Manage your time well. Usually, first semester is an easy one. Therefore, you may not have spent 20-25 hours per week studying. However, as you progress through your program, each semester will be more labor-intensive and you will, probably, have to study for 20-25 hours per week.

2. Identify your weak spots ASAP! Remember, each semester's course work is built upon the previous one. If you fall behind in A, you will struggle in B, and most likely will fail C. If this happens, seek help and do whatever it takes to catch up.

3. Find different ways to learn and retain information. Also, test-taking is also a skill, and must be learned and practiced. Do not neglect it.

I hope it helps.

[AceOfHearts<3]

My recommendation is to not let yourself fall behind. Keep up on the material and review weekly. I did any accelerated program- I studied by myself during the week then on Sunday morning I'd meet up with a classmate for several hours and we'd go through everything we went over for the week in all our classes. We'd identify weak areas, help each other with the material, and make notes of anything we needed to clarify with instructors on Monday.

Part way through the program I also helped my friend with her studying method- I found the way she was studying was inefficient and she was struggling at times to keep her grades a comfortable level above the minimum. We had been studying the same material, yet my grades were a great bit higher than hers until I realized why she was struggling and helped her correct it. I'm saying that as a lesson that the amount of time studying does not necessarily mean anything- good study habits, being efficient, and understanding why you need to know something will take you further than studying for hours on end and just memorizing (or trying to memorize) everything.

Good luck! Remember to reach out to instructors, classmates, advisors, tutors, etc. if you find yourself struggling. As I like to say, it doesn't make a person stupid to need help, but it's stupid to need help and not seek it.