Who is finding nursing school way easier than you were told it would be?

U.S.A. Arizona

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Who is finding nursing school to be easier than expected? After reading posts and listening to students, I would have expected nursing school to be a lot harder. So far, it's quite easy. The only "hard" part about it is a lot of nonsensical busy work. The concepts themselves are quite easy. At first, I studied a lot due to hearing all the horror stories, but as time passes, I find myself not even starting the reading material until the night before a test and I'm acing all of the tests. I was also shocked at the medical math - it's about FOURTH GRADE LEVEL math! I felt like yelling out, "I'm smarter than a 5th Grader!!!!" LOL Same with some of the pharmacology & pathophysiology - fairly simple & straight forward.

Anyone else find the nursing program to be kind of Mickey Mousish? Let's hear from the other side & give some BALANCE to these false horror stories that are circulating about nursing school being difficult. :up:

Specializes in Emergency/Trauma.
I learned nothing useful in nursing school, it actually reduced my knowledge base because it focused on trivia instead of major concepts. Nursing school lays the groundwork for the endemic problems of the profession: its more about busy work, snide remarks and inflated egos than learning the fundamentals.

i can agree with this as well.

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Tele/Acute Rehab.

Do not make the mistake of using block 1 as a measuring stick for successive blocks. Even if you breezed through block 1 without cracking a book, attack block 2 as if all the horror stories and warnings you have heard about nursing school are true. Not doing so is one of the reasons block 2 has a high failure rate. Block 2 tends to be a tremendous challenge for most nursing students. Take it seriously from the beginning, and do not let yourself get behind. You can always take your studying down a notch later if you are able.

Also, get an NCLEX book and get into the habit of doing practice questions on a regular basis. This is particularly important if NCLEX style questions are difficult for you. It doesn't matter how well you understand the patho and nursing process if you can't interpret and answer NCLEX style questions well. Do not just jump in and start the questions immediately either. Read the beginning of the book where it explains how to read/interpret the questions, how to recognize distractors, etc.

And, don't waste too much of your life stressing about care plans. (Unless they are worth a butt load of points.) Care plans are vastly over emphasized and ridiculously overrated by nursing school faculty. Use a care plan constructors unless prohibited. I will attach a tutorial for one I think is good.

1a EVOLVE-CARE PLAN CONSTRUCTOR TUTORIAL.doc

1b CARE PLAN INFO FORM.doc

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Specializes in Private Practice- wellness center.
I learned nothing useful in nursing school, it actually reduced my knowledge base because it focused on trivia instead of major concepts. Nursing school lays the groundwork for the endemic problems of the profession: its more about busy work, snide remarks and inflated egos than learning the fundamentals.

No offense, but I am VERY glad I didn't attend your school. OUCH! :-( I may be paying out the rear for my degree, but we're treated with quite a bit of respect, and are expected to do the same in return.

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i learned nothing useful in nursing school, it actually reduced my knowledge base because it focused on trivia instead of major concepts. nursing school lays the groundwork for the endemic problems of the profession: its more about busy work, snide remarks and inflated egos than learning the fundamentals.

agree with irish. too much busy work and not enough real science. that's why i say no to holistic junk!!!!! worse yet, one of my instructors (heard she was slapped upside the head for idiocy) in 2010 had our class cook for a project - we got graded on taste and table setting - :::::shaking head:::: huh??!! what is this??? nursing school or suzyhomemakerschool???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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agree with irish. too much busy work and not enough real science. that's why i say no to holistic junk!!!!! worse yet, one of my instructors (heard she was slapped upside the head for idiocy) in 2010 had our class cook for a project - we got graded on taste and table setting - :::::shaking head:::: huh??!! what is this??? nursing school or suzyhomemakerschool???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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seriously??

do you mind saying what school you went to?

that's crazy.

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Specializes in med-surg.

^^^^ lmao you have a head start on house frumpery! :eek: :lol2::lol2::lol2::lol2::lol2::lol2:

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agree with irish. too much busy work and not enough real science. that's why i say no to holistic junk!!!!! worse yet, one of my instructors (heard she was slapped upside the head for idiocy) in 2010 had our class cook for a project - we got graded on taste and table setting - :::::shaking head:::: huh??!! what is this??? nursing school or suzyhomemakerschool???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sounds like the "village idiot" who taught my daughter. it's a shame these types of instructors exist. they are reducing nursing to housewifery.

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agree with irish. too much busy work and not enough real science. that's why i say no to holistic junk!!!!! worse yet, one of my instructors (heard she was slapped upside the head for idiocy) in 2010 had our class cook for a project - we got graded on taste and table setting - :::::shaking head:::: huh??!! what is this??? nursing school or suzyhomemakerschool???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what a totally unprofessional instructor....cooking, taste, table setting??? insane!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Not as bad as I thought it would be, but the busy work really reduces my ability to learn what I need to learn to become a knowledgeable nurse. No time to really understand the concepts, no teaching about interventions, which seems to be the focus on most test questions, but plenty of papers to write, presentations to give, and wasting time on useless projects.

I feel as though nursing school taught me maybe 20% more than I knew prior to attending and I'm almost done. :-/

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I feel as though nursing school taught me maybe 20% more than I knew prior to attending and I'm almost done. :-/

I kinda felt this way. It's not that more information wasn't in the official curriculum, but there was

No time to really understand the concepts,.

That is, somewhere in the thousands of pages of reading surely was lots of useful information. But a good percentage of that reading wasn't useful (ad nauseum repetition of basic nursing interventions - therapeutic listening, turn-cough-deep-breath, etc).

And the rest of it, well, who had time to do more than skim the readings when more intensive reading only made test performance worse (d/t 'overthinking') and so much time needed to be spent on care plans (ad nauseam repition of basic nursing interventions) and other projects? So the nursing school could claim to have 'taught' so much info on all variety of conditions (see it was in the curriculum-week 3, chapters 12-20) wheres what was actually learned could be a whole other story.

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Specializes in Cardiac Care.

I never found it really hard just time consuming. The first semester was Ok because I was prepared for it. Second semester was pretty easy I thought. Of course now I am going into the the LPN-RN bridge soon, but I don't expect it to be much harder, since our LPN year was taught the same way, except with OB and Peds & Mental Health added in.

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Nursing isn't exactly rocket science.

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