What am I in for?

There are so many variables related to this. It depends on your program and how much busy work they have you doing, how many clinical hours and how easily you learn. Some people in my class lived and breathed the material to pass and some people didn't have a hard time at all. There's no way to tell how your experience will be.

Congrats.

For me, my program was accelerated. So I really only had time for study and sleep. I went out to dinner on Thursday nights (the end of the week), studied on the weekends and started it all over the following Monday. I went on vacations on the breaks and that was the extent of it.

If you have a traditional program (not accelerated) then you MAY have time to go skiing. But you need to prioritize your activities. School comes first and if you can't do any activities with friends or family for a while, then so be it. You may have to sacrifice fun for as long your program runs just to achieve your goals.

You need to stay on top of your work, the minute you fall behind, you are only setting yourself up for failure. So get mentally prepared to give yourself to the nursing program. I suggest you have AS MUCH fun this summer.

But still give yourself a day to take care of yourself while in the program because it can be stressful too.

Basically there needs to be a healthy balance and you need to gauge where you need put more of your energy.

Good luck and keep us updated.

As an above poster said it really does depend on many factors. My program's first semester was fairly easy, for me, I only studied a couple times before tests and we went to clinical a total of 5 times, and I made an A. But I have heard other students say they had a rough time, and also I have heard the rest of the semesters are incredibly more difficult. What I used to do for really hard classes in my prereqs was to study hardcore every single day exept one day of the week I would take a break and do something I wanted to do besides study. Helped a lot because you look forward to that day and it gives you a break. The amount of studying will depend on your course and your learning ability. I went into nursing school thinking that it would be hell and that motivated me to study more than I needed.

The things that helped me most were to go to class every single day, read every thing they assign, and take lots of notes and rewrite them after class in better writing with more information and detail. It makes for much better study material. Good luck!