Tips for surving the 1st Semester of Nursing School

[ArrowRN, BSN, RN]

Hey guys,

I can't believe I made it through finals week and my first semester of nursing school is done. I was totally exhausted with several days of 3 hours of sleep and 5 straight exams. Anyways I'm like a straight B student, nope I actually scraped up one A, and that's not bad considering I have a family and lots of distractions at home...but for me that not where I usually am, so I wanted to offer up some tips on how to survive the first semester of nursing school.

1. READ your books. This is probably the most annoying thing especially for those like me who learn visually or auditory, so I ended up having to rewrite my notes (because highlighting does not work for me), and reading out loud.

2. Buy an NCLEX book and start using it now! Some might not like this idea, but nursing questions sucks because all the answers are viable and getting an NCLEX book in your first semester will help you get past the shock phase of those crazy critical thinking questions for those who are more fact based learners like myself.

3. Be outspoken. I think it's no secret by now that most all nursing instructors highly favor students who are extroverts and who talk a lot. Being an introvert did not help me out much. My clinical instructors said I'm too shy to be a nurse, when I really have no problem talking in front crowds, I'm just quiet and that's how God made me. If you are quiet like me, make it a point to be extra loud and outspoken especially to you clinical instructor and always volunteer to be the first to try new skills...just trust me on this.

4. Get a good calendar. Whether you choose an online calendar or an old fashioned one, it is a requirement because your brain won't be able to remember all the dates and commitments you have for assignment deadlines.

5. Start projects early. Go into each class schedule on the first day of class and find all your big papers and start drafting them. Do a little each week so you won't be overwhelmed especially with the time consuming task of finding evidence based research.

6. Nursing students don't get sick. Ok apparently nursing students are not allowed to get sick, I had a long sick weekend and missed a few assignment deadlines one week and missed 1 day of class for being sick...next thing I'm being called into the nursing office as they question my motives for being a nurse. Anyways...as long as you not in a casket...drag yourself to school, it's better for them to send you home than to call in sick.

7. Back up your papers. There nothing worse than pushing the power button and finding out that your computer, iPad or whatever has now crashed and your paper is due tomorrow and you got no way to get it. Well that actually happened to someone in my class. Keep a flash drive handy and back up those large papers onto it or if you feel comfortable with the cloud, you can use a free cloud based service like Microsoft SkyDrive, or icloud as a backup. Sometimes I would backup papers to SkyDrive at home and then I could continue working on them at the school library. This is a great way to get access to your work from anywhere, in addition to keeping a safe copy in case the main computer crashes.

8. Finally, Say goodbye to life as you know it. The boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, husband, dog, cat and pet rats will need to understand that you are in nursing school. This means you basically don't have a life and won't be seeing much of them...ok they won't understand but they will try to. Just be patient with the transition of the school life, it is not easy and many relationships do not survive this test.

Lastly good luck to those who will be entering their first semester in Summer and Fall. I know its an exciting time. Got some tips of your own? Please add them to this post, I need all the help I can get as I move into semester 2.

Get your text books early and start reading:yes: