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So You're About To Start Nursing School

For many of us, school starts back up in the next week or two. And if you are about to start nursing school, I am sure you are nervous. I know I was. So I thought I would offer a few more tips to get you ready.

• Get everything ready the night before school starts. You do not want to be scrambling in the morning. You'll want your tablet or laptop, books, notebooks, planner, pens, pencils, etc. Pick out your clothes/scrubs, sock, shoes, everything! 

•  Get some sleep the night before. You want to be well-rested! Take a melatonin, some Z-Quil, drink warm milk. Not necessarily all of them of course! 

•  Do not expect the first week to be syllabus week! You will go over the syllabus on the first class, but then you jump right into lecture. If you get your syllabus ahead of time, go over it and read the assigned reading before class. 

• Sit in the front row or as close as possible. It forces you to pay attention and ask questions if you're confused. 

• Your instructors may not let you record the lectures. So make sure to listen extra carefully and take good notes. If you write your notes short-hand, make sure you can interpret them. I personally would rather take notes on my laptop, since I can type faster than I can write. But then I go home and write down key points. Physically writing information down has been shown to stay fresher in the mind than just typing. 

•  Keep up with the reading! Nursing school isn't like other classes where you only need to study sometimes. Studying should be an everyday thing. 

• Nursing school isn't just memorization. It's about understanding concepts and how to apply them to nursing situations. Your instructors will guide you into this process. 

I hope this helped some and if you have any questions, please feel free to comment! 

Things to Know Before You Start Nursing School!

New Nursing Tips

Buy a planner and use it, even if you're the type to use an electronic calendar. It's a good place to write down assignments until you can transfer it over. Plus, if you can't access your computer or phone, you'll have another place with the information.

ASK QUESTIONS! If you need help, ask your instructors or students in a semester or 2 ahead of you. If you're nervous about asking for help in front of your class, talk to your instructors during their office hours.

Read the chapters before lecture. No really. It helps so much with understanding your lecture content. It will help cement the concepts rather than sounding like Greek to you.

Buy a drug guide with an online/digital version of it. Believe me, it is worth it. You will be doing a lot of drug concept maps and copying and pasting over information saves you tons of time!

Use your lab time! And use it wisely. Remember in chem lab or A&P lab when you were trying to get through it as fast as possible? Yeah, you don't want to do that in your labs. Take the time to practice your skills because you will be tested on them. For instance, inserting catheters is a sterile procedure. One mistake and you have to start all over again. If you're having trouble, ask your instructors to give you tips and tricks.

You might gain weight in nursing school. You spend lots of time sitting and studying. You grab junk because it's faster. You might eat because you're stressed. BUT, you don't have to gain weight. Eat sensibly, pack your lunch on school and clinical days, grab nutrient dense snacks over the crap, and avoid the vending machines at all costs! Also, exercise! It's a great stress relief.

Take care of your whites and by whites, I mean your clinical scrubs. Oxyclean is great for keeping whites white. Bleach can actually make whites look dingy. Use peroxide for blood and hairspray for ink stains. Throwing a damp washcloth in with your scrubs in the dryer can help remove wrinkles! Oh and as for underthings, wear flesh toned undies and bras. They are less likely to show up under your scrubs.

Make friends/be nice with everyone in your nursing class. Even if you don't like them. Why? Well, first of all, you're stuck with them for the next 2 years. And secondly, they might have some awesome studying tips, tricks, notes, etc. Or they'll become part of your study group.

Find a carpool group if you don't live close to your campus. Why? You save on gas/money, it's better for the environment, and you have an instant study group on test days!
Buy yourself some smelly lip balm and dab some under your nose when you need to change a patient's smelly brief. It helps with the gaggy smell. I like this one!

Nursing School Sure Does Keep You Busy

Even when you're technically on BREAK! I just checked the special website for my nursing school and I have lots to do. AND they have to be completed before school starts on the 26th. 2 chapters to read, review skills learned last semester, and start working on skills for this semester.

The point of today's blog is that nursing school is not easy. It's not supposed to be. It's supposed to be hard. We may not be doctors, but we do hold people's lives in our hands. We need to know our shit and nursing school is designed to make us learn it.

Pre-nursing students - you might see/hear nursing students talk about how much work nursing school is. It is a lot of work. We really do study...a lot. Why? Because you can't just float by in nursing school! We really do stress over tests, assignments, clinical. We really wonder how we're supposed to pack in school, family, jobs, and a social life. Time management is really important.

Also - pre-nursing students, if you want some great tips, check out Twitter. There are tons on nursingstudent anons that have great advice. #adviceforbabynursingstudents

A couple of my faves are https://twitter.com/Nursingstress and https://twitter.com/NursingStruggle.

And here's my Twitter too - https://twitter.com/RamblingSN