Studying Tips

excellent!!!

note cards are the best!!!

(unfortunatley, many students

won't invest the time

to recite them to memory

because no one had warned them

that nursing school is difficult!)

anyway...

a nclex-styled review book

with questions, answers and rationales

helps.

you are disciplined enough

not to need the help

of a study group.

a study group would be blessed

to have you.:loveya:

much success to you!!!

happy nurses' week!!!

happy mother's day!!!

If overstudying got you As in your pre-reqs, go for it - although you might find it a challenge in an accelerated program. The only other thing that helped me was to discover who the brightest students were in the class and try to become friendly with them - birds of a feather flock together. After you feel confident that you can master the material, start helping others who are having trouble. Besides being just plain kind, it also gives you a chance to think through what you have learned and re-process it. You seem like a person who sets a high standard for yourself so I think you will do just fine!

Okay, I have been looking at this myself and I use/found

1. Doing questions NCLEX style worked for everyone I know who recently graduated nursing school.

2. Prioritize

3. Use a large desk calender to map out your weeks worth of work. It's a great visual on quick you can put what needs to be done and the time.

4. You tube- type in nursing student, they tend to give good tips.

I get easily distracted too. Something that works for me is to set a timer for 30-60 minutes, and then take a break, then set it again, and continue. Breaks can be just a few minutes, or lunchtime, or longer--you just plan it ahead of time, and study or read with total attention during the time you've set to do that.

I always found it really helpful to work with others in my program. Before a test we would go through the material together, reciting "Ok this is how this works, and this is why this is the way it is". If one person knew how to calculate a glasgow coma scale, they would quiz the others.

On tests things we reviewed would always come up. I might have missed something in my studying, but when so-and-so reminded me in the review session, I was able to recall it easily on the exam.

Also, it is really important to understand the WHY behind different processes. If you just memorize that the signs and symptoms of this disease are A, B and C it is much easier to forget. If you understand the process you can figure out anything on the test and more importantly in the actual situation.

But after all is said and done, whatever has worked for you in the past, just keep doing it! Everyone's studying methods are different. I used to think that I should take my time on tests and give each question it's time, but I realized that my method of going through the whole test answering as many as I can definitely do first and then going through and checking the ones I was unsure on was so much better for me. It might not be the best method for everyone- but just do what works for YOU! :)

I'm finishing up my ABSN program this August, lots of work- but you can do it! Good luck!

You may have a hard time doing the overlearning thing once nursing school proper starts. It is so much harder and time consuming than you think it will be! I promise! But it's doable. I, too, am very very very easily distracted. What works for me is to leave home to study. I either go to the Starbucks at my local Target (it's less frequented and they don't play overhead music) or else a library. That way, I'm not tempted by the laundry, the t.v., the internet, the refrigerator, the telephone, a nap, painting my fingernails, reading a magazine, etc, etc, ad nauseum. I neglected to stick to this routine this semester and I did okay, but it was much more time consuming than it would have been if I had just carved out a couple of half-days a week to study away from home.

Good luck to you!

It can end up being a lot of writing, but I used to make outlines....

The basic concepts of what I needed to study, adding details.

Then I'd take the main points, and fill in as much as I could from memory.

I'd keep doing this until I could write the whole thing without looking.

What was nice about this was, after writing them a few times, was when it came time to take a test, I could picture the outline in my head when I got to a question. It really helped jog my memory.

This method can really work well if you learn well by writing, which I always have.

we had a small study group (5of us). we always met at my house because i was centrally located to everyone. and my husband was the perfect nursing school husband! he was chronically ill due to Acute Intermittent Porphyria. he had a port, various central lines, and all kinds of machines and pumps at home. he let us practice almost everything on him. i couldnt tell the times we rolled him around on the bed learning to change linens, give bed baths, take VS, sterile dressing changes....everything EXCEPT catherters, lol. for some reason he wouldnt let us do that on him, lol. so we cath'd my favorite stuffed animal, Doogan. poor Doogan, he had an NG tube too. and anything else we could stick in him,lol.

when studying for exams, we had 3 NCLEX study guides. I think we used Mosby's the most (granted this was 15 yrs ago). The mosby book was seperated into study sections by organ systems so we could study specifically for which exam we were taking.

what we did was ask the question outloud and then discuss as a group each of the 4 answers to choose from. we didnt just try to pick the right answer. we discussed each answer as to why or why not it was the right answer. it really worked for us. my personal grades went way up when we changed to this type of study group. the exams we had were all multiple choice so we could figure out the answers easier. 2 of our intstructors wrote questions for the boards. so all our exams were given multiple choice in prep for taking boards.

you just have to figure out what works.