couldn't wait for ADN acceptance, now kind of terrified

SopranoKris, MSN, RN, NP · Apr 10, 2014

Nursing school jitters! You've worked hard and now you're in...congratulations! :) I was in your shoes last fall.

Nursing school is unlike anything you've ever done before. Learning to think like a nurse will feel strange and foreign at first. I highly recommended brushing up on critical thinking skills. The Fundamentals Success book is terrific.

In lecture, we were expected to have read & prepared ahead of time. No spoon feeding, no pre-printed Power Points. She covered topics she felt needed further explanation, but anything in the readings was fair game on the exams.

Skills lab, we were expected to watch video demo & read our chapter prior to lab and practice our technique with minimal supervision. We weren't coddled, that's for sure.

At clinicals, we had to jump right in and start doing full assessments from day 1.

So, be organized and be prepared. Be aware that the first 6 weeks, you're going to say "what did I get myself into?" many times. You'll be amazed at how much you learn after one semester :)

windsurfer8, BSN, RN · Apr 10, 2014

The cool thing is once you are in then you feel back in control. Getting accepted into a program really all you can do is the work and then hope you are accepted. Now...you are totally in control. I felt so relieved when I got into my ABSN program. I knew at that moment I would make it because failure was not an option and I was in control of how much I studied and how hard I worked. So...easy. Just did what had to be done. In a sense you are now in control. Learn, study, and when things don't go perfect do not panic. You may have to adjust study habits etc. If studied 20 hours and didn't do well then study 30. A poor test score is INFORMATION..it is telling you to study harder or smarter. You got it. congrats!

breanna91 · May 7, 2014

Thank you both for your responses! Very helpful and encouraging. Being in control is an interesting/good way to think about it.

RunBabyRN · May 8, 2014

Did I feel like we were prepared walking into clinicals? No! But I don't think anyone walks in thinking, "I've got this," and if they do, they are in trouble. Everyone is scared, and that's okay! Just keep it off your face when you see your patients. Keep breathing, and know that no one expects you to be perfect.

You'll learn A LOT about yourself in this program. You'll learn how you really handle stress, how to work with time management, what "more right" means.

There will be times you'll wonder why you did this, but don't ever second guess whether or not you're cut out for it. KNOW that you are, don't allow anyone to tell you otherwise, and forge ahead.

Good luck, and congratulation!

LoriRNCM, ADN, ASN, RN · May 8, 2014

Your instructors won't just throw you into clinicals without any basic assessment knowledge. The first few weeks are NUTS especially, because we had three intense labs before we started clinicals to learn some basic assessing skills and the obvious infection control protocols. Your instructors don't want you going into clinicals unsafe. That said, you will still feel like a fish out of water. That's normal. I still feel that way some days after a year of clinicals. Congrats! We are here for you!

Streamline2010 · May 8, 2014

If you get in there and work, work, work, you should do fine! :-)

Nursing I is kind of a catch-all course. The "kitchen sink." LOL It's a hogepodge of seemingly unrelated topics, but it's valuable introductory things that you need to know before you can move on. Just get on the subject material, stay up with it, don't ever let yourself get behind. The nursing content isn't something you can cram. You have to drill yourself, over and over, so that it sinks in. And the test questions will be asking you how to apply it, and make decisions. Prereqs were just facts and knowledge. Nursing will require you to know the material, but many of the exam questions are going one or more steps beyond and are asking you to do NCLEX style questions, where you may have one completely wrong answer, and two or three that are possible actions but you have to prioritize them and pick the BEST one. Personally, I think Nursing I is a bit early for that but hey, that's how nursing school is and you have to hit the ground running. The key is to thoroughly understand the course material, and do a lot of practice questions before the real exam. That's what those Success books do. And study guides for your textbook, and online resources for your text, too.

Nursing school takes over your entire life. If the material comes easy to you, you may be one of the lucky ones who can read it once and sail through with a minimum of effort. But that isn't the norm for a lot of people.

Don't worry about the clinicals. If your clinicals are like ours were, it's mostly nurse-aide level skills: Bathing, repositioning, ambulating, making beds with or without a patient in them, helping people dress. You learn to use the BP cuff, thermometer, take pluses at various locations on the body and they start you with that in the sim labs. You get training in lecture about the legal, ethical, and HIPA issues that a RN has to know. We started by going to a nursing home. We changed bedding, gave bed baths, dressed pts, ambulated them, observed medications being administered. We examined charts. We followed CNAs and LPNs around. Our instructor made sure that we cleaned up incontinent pts and changed briefs, performed a tube feeding, observed an ostomy appliance changed. They expose you to the odors, the vomit, the poop, etc. But you also get to take BP and other vital signs, chat with pts, assess their needs (like "risk for social isolation" for a bedridden pt, etc)

Don't go in nervous. You can handle all of it. That's why it is called Nursing I. There are people who fail nursing I. But of the ones I saw it was one or all of 4 things:

-- People who didn't put the time in : crammed, tried to catch up, could not because you need to understand thoroughly not just parrot something back. Scored too low on exams.

-- People who just had no idea what they were getting into, found they didn't like the work and it was too far outside of their interests. I knew a couple of men and women like that. Some withdrew, some failed out.

-- People who had too much going on outside of nursing school. They could pull that off in prereq college courses, but not the nursing course b/c the nursing demands so much more time outside of class. You may need to cut back hours you work, give up your social life, and/or shift childrearing onto the spouse.

-- People who just lacked maturity. They didn't ever study, they goofed off, cut class, performed unsafely at clinicals, complained about odors and poop, slacked off at clinicals, maybe lied about performing patient assessments and just made stuff up. Instructors want to boot those people out ASAP.

One thing to remember about RN school: Always be on your best behavior. THINK before you act. Always be adult, control your emotions, actually do the work, be very dedicated to learning, and don't be "above" anything. The instructors are observing you. The regular employees are observing you. The patients are observing you. RN school is a lot about ethics, character, and emotional maturity. It's a very demanding curriculum. It's a "people" profession, and those all require you to hone your people skills.

If you get in there and work, work, work, you should do fine!