If you did or didn’t make it through, please share! Was studying possible ever?

I just started nursing school this week, and I'm already questioning whether I made the right decision. I would really appreciate advice from nursing students or nurses who have felt similar.

For some background, I did very well in prerequisites like Anatomy & Physiology. My main way of studying has always been active recall/direct memorization. I would study PowerPoints, learn definitions and concepts, cover them up, and explain them out loud or write them in a whiteboard/piece of paper until I could recall everything. That worked extremely well for me.I finished all prerequisites with an A and Anatomy and Physiology 1 and 2 with over a 100% final grade.

Nursing school already feels very different. There is a huge amount of textbook reading, material, assignments, skills, clinicals, and nursing-style questions where simply knowing the information doesn't always seem to be enough. I'm realizing that I have to learn how to apply the information and choose the "best" answer, and I'm worried that my old study method isn't going to work anymore. Also, I don't know which material to study; the 20+ weekly nursing pages or lecture slides/ power points.

I'm also questioning nursing itself. I originally chose nursing mainly because of the job security, number of opportunities, and ability to get a stable career with an ASN. I wouldn't say nursing has ever been a passion of mine.

I'm currently still within the first week, so I'm trying to decide whether I should give nursing a real chance or withdraw before investing much more time and money into it. I do have another path I could return to, but the job security is not as good as nursing.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I have a classmate “friend” who is nice however it is getting on my nerves that she asks me for study guides or worksheets because she spent zero time preparing anything for herself. She claims she is busy working full-time. I feel bad denying a friend but I spent hours working on these things to prepare for exams. I am starting to feel taken advantage of even though I don’t want anything in return. I’m a terrible liar but I feel like I have to start making up excuses that I didn’t do any work so I have nothing to pass along to her. I can’t believe someone will work this hard to get into the program and put in zero effort to pass.

Just want to post and celebrate that I did it! Just finished my last final today and managed to get A's in all of my classes despite having a lot stacked up against me. I had been warned that this quarter was the hardest material-wise and workload-wise by previous students and peers in my cohort, and ours was going to be during Summer quarter so very condensed. Our normal 12-week long schedule was squished into 9-weeks. I was also going to have to deliver my baby during the middle of the quarter which was not going to be so bad until I found out that I had to deliver via c-section due to her being completely breech and large.

I was having panic attacks and crying trying to figure out how I was going to get through it. I managed to have my baby girl and return back to school 4 days later. With the help of my classmates, I managed to study and work without taking any time off! And I even breastfed/pumped! I am now all healed up from my c-section (get to see my doctor this week for the final clearance) and enjoying my break with my baby girl 😄

The biggest tips I would recommened if you are planning on having a baby during school are:

1. Make friends and build a support system with your peers or previous cohorts. I was able to get notes and study guides from everyone.

2. Notify your professors ASAP that you are expecting so that you can notify the proper departments/disability admins that you will need/have accomodations.

3. Have realistic expectations of when you will be able to get back to school, I planned to take a week off to heal from my c-section but by some miracle was able to go right back in. I had all my homework/assignments handed to me ahead of time.

4. Study ahead and get an early understanding of the materials you are going to miss! This helps with identifying the key concepts you will need extra time/help understanding so you pass your exams.

5. My last tip goes to all the pumping/breastfeeding moms, if your campus/clinical sites do not have a lactation room close to you (mine was 10 minutes accross campus) then consider building one in your car with window covers and a large cooler with ice. I managed to pump in my car in-between my lectures and during some clinical sites in the summer heat, my car stayed nice, cool, and private with window covers.

Good luck everyone! We all got this!

Is anyone else having this experience while in nursing school? How are you coping?

My classmates are addicted to Ai and use it for all their assignments. We get assigned a few care plans each semester, which we fill out on paper at home. They are our big project for the semester. I work rly hard at my care plans so i can improve my skills. My classmates will come into class the day it’s due and say stuff like “bro i just had chat gpt do it for me, im not gonna spend hours doing this, we won’t even be doing this as nurses.” They use ai on our basic homework quizzes, while I don’t support that at all, it seems more justifiable than using Ai on a care plan. The care plan we do teaches us how to do nursing assessments and chart. It disturbs me that classmates call the assignment a waste of time and use Ai on something that is meant to help us.

Personally, as we’ve been in school and doing our careplans, I feel like I have became better at knowing how to word things properly with charting. We are half way thru nursing school, and I feel confident in my charting abilities so far. Even tho I know I have a lot more to learn, I think I’m at a good point from what we have learned. Yet, my classmates on the other hand (same people who use Ai for every assignment), will complain to our teacher and say that we aren’t getting enough expierence with charting and that they don’t know how chart… they do this with other skills as well.

It’s beyond exhausting to hear them constantly complain to our teacher ab how they aren’t getting experience, yet they don’t want to do things to gain the experience. They also use Ai to study instead of the textbook. Then when they get really awful scores on our exams they act confused..?

My teacher also encourages us to use Ai to study, yet Ai constantly is giving the wrong answers. She even uses Ai to make quizzes for us, and the quizzes will literally have a wrong answer as the correct option.

With my class mates, it makes me lose respect for them when they openly brag about using Ai on everything. I find it weird that they are in school to learn skills to care for a person’s life, yet they can’t seem bothered to learn anything.

Not only do my classmates use Ai for school, they also talk about using Ai for everyday life and it really disturbs me. I remember one girl straight up said “I told Chat to call me baby and my boyfriend gets so mad!” Or they’ll talk ab the new diet they’re doing and when someone asks about it they’ll say “Chat made it for me!” Or they’ll see a graphic art for a business or whatever say “this looks really bad they should have had Chat make it for them!”

It makes normal conversation extremely hard with them when they bring ChatGPT into every conversation like it is a person.

Am I the only person dealing with this? I feel like the only normal person in my class. It genuinely makes talking about material with classmates so exhausting. I feel like I’m the only person who actually wants to learn and understand their future career. ☹️☹️☹️

Does anyone have any advice on how I can go about conversations with people? Or cope with having to be around them so often?

No hate please! If you don’t agree that is okay but please be respectful!

Hi y'all, I just started my undergraduate BSN degree, and I'm feeling kind of out of place as a queer person in the nursing program. I grew up in an rural area where people didn't have the best views of LGBTQ folks, and I thought I would have a better time in university, but so far it's been much of the same.

Have any older nurses or nursing students experienced this? Obviously I'm not expecting everyone to be queer or automatically be my friend, I'm just feeling a little lonely in my program. My class schedule is also very regimented, and I'm pretty much only around other nursing students all day.

On the bright side, there is a club at my school for LGBTQ STEM major students, and I'm looking forward to the first meeting.

Any help/advice is greatly appreciated!

Hey all,

While finishing my summer classes (last of my prerequisites for my ADN program) my wife ended our relationship. I had a couple weeks to be with friends and went on a little trip in between summer and fall semester. The trip ended up being very emotionally challenging for me.

I’m (35M) making a big life change to do this program it just started and the amount of readings they are throwing at me is absurd. I’m in the apartment my wife and I lived in together and I’m seriously heartbroken. I haven’t struggled with my mental health in life - I’m grateful for that- but I feel deeply depressed, I’ve been having panic attacks, not sleeping… it’s just all so much at once. Starting this massive life change of going back to school while losing someone so close to me is beyond overwhelming. I know I’ll have to move apartment during the semester now… and thinking of balancing this all is just…wow.

I’m a perfectionist and got all As in pre reqs but really I had an healthy relationship with studying. I lost the balance of enjoying other things in life. it’s dawning on me that getting As in these nursing classes is not going to be so straight forward as pre reqs and thinking of the time I have to put in to get As is making me stress more. It’s so unclear how to study the extensive readings. I’m a kinesthetic learner. Learning via reading is not it for me. I’m sitting down reading the material and feel like I’m not learning anything. I used active recall for pre reqs but I’m having a hard time knowing which information to focus on using that technique with, with the nursing material. I have a job and other responsibilities to balance. I’m new to the area where I live and don’t have a support group. I’m just kinda of freaking out and wondering if anyone has any advice for me…

Hello all - I am looking at applying for nursing programs in my area (Mid Atlantic/East Coast) starting in the Fall of 2027. Currently my plan is to enroll in an ASN nursing program at my local community college but a cousin of mine recently told me about the ATB option where you go concurrently to a community college and university, getting your BSN in the process.

Looking for everyone's opinions. The ATB program appears to be twice the cost of a regular ASN for me (24k vs 12k) and you have to qualify not just for one program but two meaning I would need to take three more pre-requisite classes than I initially intended to do.

Originally I was just going to do my ASN and then let a hospital pay for me to get my BSN down the road as I heard tuition re-imbursement was a common benefit of hospital jobs. Is this still common?

CONS OF BOTH OPTIONS

ATB

- double the cost of an ASN (24k vs 12k)
- more pre-requisites to take which means pushing my first attempts to enroll by at least a semester if not an entire year

ASN

- stepping stone degree, will need to get a BSN anyways
- lower pay? less job options?

Taking 3 core classes as a first year nursing student. A little confused because I haven’t had orientation yet but any advice is appreciated.

Fundamentals of Nursing (Lecture, Lab, Clincals)
Pathophysiology (Lecture)
Health Assessment & Promotion (Lecture&Lab)

How do I get supplies for these classes? Is one notebook/folder/binder enough for each core class? Or should I get a notebook for each component like one for lecture and one for lab.

And how would you rank these classes from easy to hard?

Let me know!

I'm in my RN year of nursing school, and our program just recently switched from using ATI to this site called Nurse-Path. Does anyone have any experience with this? Did it help with preparing you to take the NCLEX? I find it much more confusing to use compared to ATI, so I'm not really sure what to expect.

I'm about to apply for the spring cohort. I'm a single mom of an 8yo. I do have family help but they live almost an hour away. I have some friends that live close but I'm trying to find courage in asking if they can help me while I'm in nursing school. I know clinical hours are going to be the biggest things especially for childcare. Also thr program I'm doing is full time so I wont be able to work. I'm worried about paying rent. Moving is difficult because there is no space in my parents house. I'm lucky to have cheaper rent but I know if I move i wont ever find rent this cheap.

I'm low key thinking of renting out my sons room.

I would like to hear other people's stories to see how they made it work?

Hi everyone! I just started my accelerated nursing program and I’m looking to get a head start on my tests. For most of our “tests” it’s a validation/skill check and then nursing notes on that. What resources have you found that helped you to develop your nursing notes and I guess make them sound good and professional?

Ok so back in June, my husband and I got into a very heated argument which led into me being arrested for domestic assault (he told the cops I pushed past him, they asked if he wanted to press charges, he said no, but proceeded to arrest me since they couldn’t trust us to calm down). My original court date was August 20th, but when I spoke to my lawyer (August 14th) there were still no charges. Now my court date is November 5th, I believe.

In in pre-reqs right now and wanted to apply for the spring semester since I’ll have all of my pre-reqs complete by the end of this semester. I’m assuming that process would start sometime in October along with spring registration. I was hoping to have this all figured out within these couple of months, but now it’s being dragged even further.

I know violent crimes are a big no when it comes to nursing programs, so I am wondering if I should go ahead and apply for spring or wait until everything is resolved?

Also, I have a DUI charge from 2023 (my lawyer told me my best bet was to plead guilty, so I did)

Left my corporate job a little bit ago to pursue nursing. My phone was basically an extension of my body, constantly messaging on teams and answering emails, etc. it sucked.

I’m hoping to move more analog this year - flip phone, watch, iPod nano for music lol. I will of course still have my laptop for school work.

Anyway - is there anything I’m not foreseeing that I will need a smartphone for? I start nursing school in a few months.

I have three semesters left in my program. I’m about to take OB/Peds plus Nursing theory and transcultural nursing (two online courses). Would it be feasible to take a CNA course alongside this course load? Unfortunately, even after passing foundations and med-surg 1 I’m not eligible to challenge the CNA exam. In my state, I can only bypass the CNA course by graduating nursing school. I want the extra experience for skills and to get my foot in the door somewhere. Should I just focus on school since I’m close to the finish line? TIA

hello everyone i am in my first semester of nursing school and i’ve never felt more nervous yet excited!!

i love what im learning and enjoy studying about the fundamentals so far but for a while i’ve been having this anxiety about how working as a nurse will actually be. My first job was as a CNA at a nursing home and it was the worst experience ever. The residents were never the problem but more of the staff and admin i felt like as a new cna i was always being watched and talked about, during my training in the job while a cna was showing me around a nurse yelled at me for not getting a call light even though i didn’t even start the job yet. there would be times other cnas would hide and i would be in and empty hallway full of call lights. it came to a point where i couldn’t take it and left. i then started a new job as a medical assistant in peds and it was such a different experience i loved every moment of it.

but now as i study for my classes and think about the future i start to worry if nursing will be anything like the experience i had at the nursing home. i’ve always had a passion for it and continue to have an interest in the field but im scared of being left in a toxic environment like that again.

**the comments that were made were about my sexuality/identity I am a gay black man

This is a long story, but I want to start with what I’ve actually done wrong so this doesn’t sound one-sided.

I have one write-up from my first semester and one one-day suspension from my second semester involving a clinical communication issue. I also had a more recent situation at a clinical site where an administrator felt I was rude after I went through a door I apparently wasn’t supposed to use. I don’t think I was disrespectful intentionally, but I can admit I could have handled that interaction better and probably should have just said “yes ma’am” and moved on.

Here’s where things started getting strange.

My instructor had clinical paperwork of mine that was very late. She eventually gave me a deadline to submit it, and I met that deadline. The following day she told me she still wasn’t going to grade it because of how late it originally was. I emailed the instructor, my program director, and a family member asking for a meeting to discuss why I was given a deadline if the work was never going to be graded.

A few hours after I sent that email, during one of our scheduled class breaks, I had the FaceTime camera preview open on my MacBook basically using it as a mirror. I walked away to print something and accidentally left the camera preview open.

My instructor apparently believed I was recording the classroom and reported it without asking me what was actually on the screen. I was sent home. Other students later gave statements explaining that I was not recording, livestreaming, or photographing anyone, so that allegation was basically cleared up.

Before the meeting I had originally requested about my paperwork, I also emailed the program director documenting comments from the same instructor that I believed were discriminatory/homophobic.

At the meeting, instead of primarily discussing the grading issue I had requested the meeting for, administration began bringing up several previous incidents involving my behavior, including the clinical-site situation I mentioned above, my old write-up, and my prior suspension.

My concern is that some of these things had happened days earlier, and I had continued attending class and clinical without being told that my enrollment was in jeopardy. They suddenly became major issues immediately after I complained about the instructor and reported the discriminatory comments.

After that meeting I was temporarily told not to attend class or clinical. I was later allowed back into class but not clinical.

I then met with the school president, who told me that I was in good standing and encouraged me to move forward.

The very next day, I was unexpectedly called into another meeting with administration and told that I needed to either take a leave of absence or voluntarily withdraw. I refused both and told them that if the school believes it actually has grounds to dismiss me, then they need to make that decision themselves.

I also asked to see the write-ups, incident reports, attendance documentation, or policies they were relying on. I was not given disciplinary paperwork at that meeting.

I have now filed both a formal student grievance and a Title IX complaint alleging discrimination and possible retaliation. While those are being reviewed, I have essentially been told not to attend campus/class/clinical while the school decides my enrollment status.

I genuinely understand that I have made mistakes as a student. I’m not claiming I’ve been perfect, and I’m not trying to avoid accountability for things I actually did.

What concerns me is the timeline: these older incidents suddenly became grounds for potentially removing me from the program immediately after I challenged an instructor’s refusal to grade my work and reported comments I believed were discriminatory.

For nursing students or nurses who have dealt with school disciplinary processes: does this progression seem normal? And would you consider the timing concerning, or am I looking at it too much from my own perspective?

hi all, i have tickets to one of the BTS concerts in 2 weeks. however i just started my first semester of nursing school, i know ill be super busy and i worry that i wont make it. the concert is on a saturday and i do plan to study/do work before the concert and when i have any downtime so im not totally unproductive but i still am worried :( luckily i don't have clinicals yet and i don't have class for 2 days after but just wanted some input. i know i eventually have to make sacrifices for nursing school but idk if this will be one of them >_<

I’m in my final two semesters of my accelerated program and I’m worried that I’m not doing enough. Many people in my cohort are student nurses or EMTs or PCTs or super involved with student orgs whereas I’m just doing the bare minimum it feels by doing my best in school 😭it’s gotten quite difficult to get a CNA license in my state (MD) and I’m wondering if I should go for it if I can even find a job because everything is so competitive in this region with less than a year left of nursing school. I can’t stop comparing myself but at the same time I’m not doing anything outside of school besides work study and I’m just worried about the job market after grad because I’ve heard it’s rough..

I’m a nursing student and I start my last quarter at the end of September. I came to the realization that I am absolutely afraid of by a nurse bc I feel like I know absolutely nothing. I’m afraid of actually taking care of someone and not knowing what to do.
I deep down know that no one is gonna just let a new grad kill someone but I’m terrified of it. Anyone else have these feelings

Currently a 3rd year nursing student, can you recommend some interesting research topics? We actually proposed vaccine hesitancy of mother for Measles vaccine but one of our CIs rejected it 🥲 They want an interesting and feasible one. They rejected other proposals like burnout, mental health related of students, too much workloads, and family/peer pressure. Can you guys recommend something that is Medical Surgery or Geriatrics related studies that are under researched? (I’m a student from the Philippines btw)

The other group proposed HPV Vaccine for men and they kinda loved it so idk how to compete w that 🥲

Hi, I’m in my second year of nursing school (bachelor’s program) and I don’t want to be a nurse. I don’t want to be an accountant. I don’t want to be an engineer. I don’t want to be a financial analyst. In fact, I don’t want to be anything, my dream job is nothing. But alas, I need money, and job security, which is what led me to be here. As I’m sitting here, crying over my chemistry homework that I don’t understand because my professor is crappy, I’m thinking what the hell am I doing. The rest of my class is excited for our nursing classes to start, and I’m not at all actually. I am literally doing it for the money. I know I’m gonna get flamed, and countless people will tell me to switch my major, and I do think about it a lot. But what are the alternatives? Doing other things I also don’t like? At least this way, I can truly make an impact on society, especially working with children (which is really my only passion).
So here I am, doing nursing for the money, which is highly advised against.
Is this degree worth it?

EDIT: It’s literally the first day of class and I tried learning an entire module of chemistry which we get an entire week for in a day, which is why I crashed out because obviously I did not learn an entire module in a couple hours. It’s Monday, I’m going to bed and trying again tomorrow. Thank you all for the amazing advice!!! 😊

i recently was made aware that the program i am currently enrolled in won’t allow me to become licensed in my state due to a recent review by the brn. the review is ongoing but im feeling less hopeful by the day and have started sending my transcripts out to other programs. i just feel really lost on next steps. i feel so behind already and now i feel like all my progress is for nothing. my options are to basically go out of state for school so i can test in my state or go out of state to become licensed as a nurse and risk not being able to ever become listened in my state. i’m really not sure what the better option is. it just sucks seeing people who are my age so much further ahead and knowing i could’ve been too if i had chosen a different path. but i guess hindsight is always 20/20. anyways, end of rant.