What makes nursing school so hard?

Sun0408, ASN, RN · Mar 23, 2012

i assume if you can survive the prerequisites, you will be breeze through it.

that is the easy part. ns is so much more than memorizing facts and info. it is about critical thinking. critical thinking is more than 2 +2 =4.

OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN · Mar 23, 2012

Hahahha no honestly nursing school is absolutely nothing like pre-req's. An example would be at my school the nursing school is like its own world and theres just always tons of extra this and that. Clinicals are fun but stressful. Nursing school isn't really that difficult, I'ld say its more stressful then difficult and thats because there's always an extra day for this and that and you write it all down and then the next day oh we're switching this and that..So thats frustrating and there is a lot of work, not that the work is so diffult just incredibly time consuming. It's very doable but the people I see struggle the most are the ones that try to make everything too complicated and not trust themselves more.

LovinLife35 · Mar 23, 2012

What makes nursing school difficult for me is the amount of material and the limited amount of time that it is covered. We have 2 lecture days per week. Each day covers different topics unless it's something that they really want to focus on like Cardiac or Oxygenation. These two days also covers Skills class which usually covers three to four skills within that 3 hours. We also have a pharmacology lecture. Then the other two days is dedicated to clinical but we also have assignments (careplans, critical thinking questions, research meds that are to be given for that day as well as knowing everything about the patient illness) for those days as well. These clinical assignments must be submitted to our clinical instructor.

For me, nursing school itself is not extremely difficult but the sheer volume of information you have to know in order to pass the tests are overwhelming to say the least.

commonsense · Mar 23, 2012

I hear people go on about how challenging it is. I really want to know why it's so hard as they say. I assume if you can survive the prerequisites, you will be breeze through it. There were 4.0 students at my college who barely made passing grades in NS. Is it the amount of work? or are the exams/papers very difficult?

There are only 24 hours in a day and 7 days in a week.

punkydoodlesRN, BSN, RN · Mar 23, 2012

Ha ha - for my school, you can throw pre-reqs out the door. I came in with a 4.0 in pre-reqs and a 4.0 from my LVN school and this program is kicking my @$$.Like someone said, there are only 24 hours in a day, and only 7 days in a week.For example, we just had a med/surg exam that was 50 questions, yet covered FIFTEEN chapters of information, almost 800 pages!! It doesn't help when you have 4 answer choices that are all correct, but one is *most* correct.If you just had didactics or just had clinicals, I don't think it would be so overwhelming, but when you add both of them plus life (and I'm not talking social life, just eating, sleeping, bathing) It's very overwhelming and not easy. But, it is do-able. I'm doing it with a full time job, husband, and two kids. Many of my classmates are single moms. It comes down to how bad you want something.