Starting the nursing program in January 2014

The sheer volume of material is mind boggling. You are either in class, studying, or thinking about the material and the tests coming up or the assignments due. It's exhilarating and exhausting. Very stressful. No longer does an 80 mean you passed with a low B. It means failing. No pressure.

Congrats!! I am one year away from graduating in a 5 semester BSN.

Nursing school is something that you just can't comprehend till you're in it.

Love the comraderie. Hate the back stabbing competitiveness.

Love that we actually get to do real nursing skills like start IVs and educate patients, hate that as long as I have SN behind my name- I will be that annoying nursing student who gets in the way.

Love the material- most of the time. It's great to actually study things that I'm interested in. Hate the constant stream of busywork that goes hand in hand.

Love the clinicals! Hate waking up at 4:30 am to get there on time.

Love the patients! Hate the patient paperwork prep.

I'm very thankful to be in nursing school and am doing well. Many others aren't as lucky. I cannot wait to pass the NCLEX and be able to put RN behind my name. I will miss nursing school though, I've made some amazing friends and had some amazing nursing instructors cheering us on. It's a time I will not forget.

when did you apply to the program? days or evenings?

Take the time before your program starts to just relax, read a few good books, and enjoy your time. I'm not saying you won't have ANY time to do it once school starts, but your time will be better spent doing other things.

I have found my classmates to be a huge key to my success. One of the things our teachers recommended to us if we had to miss a class was to find two different people and borrow their notes because one person might have caught something the other didn't.

I love clinical and lab. Practicing the basic skills in the lab is helpful, but the real life application on a real patient is a completely different thing. I felt goofy doing a physical assessment on a dummy or my classmates but really loved goign through one on a patient. BUT, even though I felt goofy, I took things seriously in lab and really practiced as much as possible. Take the time you are given and put it to the best use you can.

If your school offers tutoring, find out when it is. If they offer groups for test anxiety, how to study, or just overall anxiety and you need it, use it. Ask questions often and, in clinical, if you are given the opportunity to see something cool, do it! I got to see several surgeries and dialysis this semester simply by asking my instructor if it was okay to do so when I was approached by the nurse with the opportunity.

The one big thing that was told to me about clinical: advocate for your patient. My friend had a patient who had a severe fluid imbalance, nutritional intake below his body's needs, and was NPO with no IV or NG tube for 3 days. Said patient was also severely underweight. She didn't just sit there and accept that that was the way it was, she asked questions about why and managed to get the physician to come up and check on the patient, who was then given an IV and food. There may be a reason that something is being done, and I'm not saying to approach in an accusatory manner, but asking questions in a polite manner may just alert the staff nurses to something that they may not have thought of as being an issue.