Whats the course load like?

CLC172 · Feb 13, 2008

Good question. It's not necessarily the same type of stuff as taking an A&P class. It's not as much rote memorization. However, a basic knowledge of the body and how it works is a very important basis for nursing. It is an incredible amount of self-motivated study and group learning. Nursing classes are designed to get you cricitcally thinking, making informed decisions based on scientific and psychological knowledge.

I would sit down with some nursing students and nursing staff at your college to discuss this further to decide whether nursing is the right career for you. I'm sure you would hate to take all of those difficult pre-reqs, or any nursing classes and find out it's not right for you! Good luck, however it works out for ya! :)

ag11 · Feb 13, 2008

Nursing is my life long dream so there no need for me to question that part :)

but thx anyway...im just so not likeing A&P at the moment and wondered if nursing school is all the same at all.

CLC172 · Feb 13, 2008

Great! Well, then don't worry too much. I know A&P is a lot. But it's more memorization than nursing school is. All of it's tough, but nursing classes are a different type of tough than A&P. Good luck!

SummerGarden, BSN, MSN, RN · Feb 13, 2008

Nursing is "sciencey". If it was not, I would not have bothered changing my career. I don't know what your thoughts are about nursing. I do not know if you misinterpret nursing to be something it is not, but from your post it sounds like you don't understand nursing (in other words, you want to be something that you don't know anything about).

A good understanding of A&P is VERY important to your successful completion of nursing school. Nursing Students apply his/her knowledge of A&P, Patho, etc. to provide holistic care to a patients response to a medical illness. So nursing courses are built on science. Other theories and skills are included in nursing courses, but for the most part what causes students to fail out of the academic portion is the science (actually not understanding it well enough to to apply his/her knowledge in a holistic manner). What causes students to fail out of clinicals is his/her inability to apply science and provide holistic care in the clinical setting.

If you want to be a successful Nursing Student and you are having trouble with A&P, seek help now!! Otherwise, if you want to help people and you do not want to deal with science then try social work, the Peace Corps, or a religious missionary organization. GL!

ag11 · Feb 13, 2008

I do need help in A&P...I will go today and buy some flashcards...thx ofr the info :)

achapman · Feb 13, 2008

No, it's not like A&P. Imo, nursing school tests are much easier than A&P tests because honestly, alot is common sense.

ktliz · Feb 13, 2008

It's not necessarily the same type of stuff as taking an A&P class. It's not as much rote memorization. However, a basic knowledge of the body and how it works is a very important basis for nursing. It is an incredible amount of self-motivated study and group learning. Nursing classes are designed to get you cricitcally thinking, making informed decisions based on scientific and psychological knowledge.

This is good to hear. I'm not enjoying A&P either, which is surprising since in every other context I have loved learning about the body. The rote memorization is awful, but I try to turn memorization into critical thinking as much as I can. If you think about the material enough, you can find ways to connect the information in different ways, so you are fitting it into your "human body schema" instead of just memorizing a lot of separate facts. It also helps to think about WHY a certain structure/function/whatever is the way it is. Teachers don't always make it entirely clear, so it can help to learn the same thing from multiple sources--lecture, the text, websites, other books, etc. It's hard, and for the most part not fun, but by turning it into critical thinking practice I feel more like I'm preparing myself for nursing school. (I'm wondering what current nursing students think of this...?)

Hope this helps!

ag11 · Feb 13, 2008

i think in my case its worse becuase my A&P is online!!! i know i know real stupid move...im starting to regret it...ide much rather have a teacher in front of me...i took it online because i have 2 kids and thought that the flexibility will be great..boy was i wrong.

lvnandmomx3 · Feb 13, 2008

As our A&P teacher for my LVN program told us. You have to know the normal before you can tell what is abnormal.......It makes sense..... I'm not in RN school yet so can't say if it resembles A&P but the fundamentals classes and med surg can be better understood after you have the foundation that A&P provides. IMHO.

catzy5 · Feb 13, 2008

Hey...im getting ready to apply to nursing school soon. What is the actual nursing course load like? Is it sciencey like the A&P I have been taking? or not? Ive been trying to find out whats the majority of the learning material but cant! (im having trouble in A&P, so im getting scared that nursing is 2 years of classes like resembling A&P)

in my program you are expected to know AP inside and out! I did really well in AP loved it but I am still struggling and having to get my text out to refresh myself. We are doing drugs now and it's a real struggle doing that and not understanding the physiology of why they work, buckle down and really get a grasp on the AP

lildan · Feb 19, 2008

I am in my first semester - taking Fundamentals of Nursing - and I think that nursing learning and A&P learning are different. A&P was more memorization and Nursing seems to be more application. But, you need to know the A&P information to apply the Nursing technique/information......without the A&P information what you're doing on the Nursing end won't make any sense. In the simplest terms, A&P will give you the "normals" and the "baselines" and nursing will teach you how to help client's achieve/maintain them. The A&P will also teach you how the body works to sometimes compensate for changes in "normal" and nursing will help you learn what to do to take the workload off of the body/enhance what the body is doing. At least, with my 5 weeks of experience that is what I am putting together.......someone with more experience please step in and correct/help me if I need it. :)

In this first semester, there has been some general A&P review that's been done mostly by the professors asking the students questions - but they are certainly not re-teaching everything, so try to learn as much as you can. To put the "amount" of A&P knowledge into perspective, at my school it is rare for students with Cs in A&P I and II to get into the program. Most have As or Bs (I had As in both). As for the workload, there is much more papework than with A&P. Good time management skills are essential.

Also, I will say that even as a A student in A&P, there were some subjects that I was better with than others - I loved the endocrine system, metabolism, the nervous system, the respiratory system, the kidneys, fluid and electrolyte balance, acid-base balance......but I could leave the skin, the skeletal system, the muscles......and (gasp!) I have to say I was not crazy about the cardiovascular system. Give yourself a few weeks to get settled into the workload and the information and then maybe talk to your professor or an advisor.

Good luck!