by This post may contain affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something we may earn a commission. Read our full disclaimer here. Our opinions are not affected by affiliates and are our own.
How to Get Through Nursing School? A question that many nursing students ask. Today we’ll be taking a look at several tips to help you succeed in nursing school!
Nursing School is Hard
Don’t think you’re the only one who is saying that. And if you aren’t now, the odds are that eventually you will be saying that or something you know will be saying that. We know how hard nursing school can be and how sacrificing studying is.
Need a laptop for nursing school? Click here to see our Best Laptops for Nursing School
Need to find out what accessories you need for nursing school? Click here for our Best Nursing School Accessories
1. Make Friends
Make friends, then make study groups, then make more friends. One of the best ways to study, especially in nursing school, are study groups. Doing flashcards with friends, or writing out terms on a whiteboard with friends is a great way to talk things out and make sure you know what is going on.
2. Get Organized
Get Organized – Get a Planner
Get a planner! Staying organized is so important to keep track of everything that is due. This is my favorite planner and I purchase one every year. If you don’t want a physical planner use Google Calendar or the Calendar app on your phone.
Get Organized – Color Code
My absolute favorite to use are felt tip pens, which I find amazing to write with and generally don’t bleed through. Color coding by subject helps tremendously when organizing information. There are the specific 5-Star binders I use. These are the 5-Star folders I use. And finally some highlighters that I love!
3. Study
This sounds way too simple to say, but some people just will refuse to study. I will agree that there are some people out there who are extremely smart and can get by without studying, but for the other 95% of us, we need to study and I can promise if you don’t you will regret it!
4. Get a Solid Laptop (or go to the library)
Having a good laptop is important not only for online classes/homework, but it is vital for researching. Here is a few of our favorites incase you needed some help picking! If you cannot get a laptop during school, at least try your best to access a solid computer at the school or public library!
5. Go to the Library (or a quiet place)
Going to the library or coffee shop is a great way to escape some of the noise of everyday life and clear your head. Having a specified study spot is important to create good study habits and helps to eliminate distractions. Check out some more of our study tips here!
6. Make Flashcards
Studying for nursing school is different than studying for other classes because there can be four multiple choice answers and all of them could be correct, the trick is you’re looking for the most correct answer. Using flashcards is crucial in developing the base knowledge needed to choose the most correct answer. If you need notecards you can get a very inexpensive set! If you don’t want to use physical notecards, you can make digital ones on Quizlet. With Quizlet you can also take them everywhere with you on your phone or computer or any mobile device. I would use Quizlet flash cards when at work and it was a great way to get some quick studying in.
7. Take Detailed Notes
Taking the best notes you can can and will set you up to be the best student you can be. Using a laptop to take notes is discouraged by some teachers, but quite honestly in some classes is the only way you can take notes fast enough. What I found out worked best for me was to take notes on my laptop (using the provided slide shows), then rewriting them after class and using those to study from. There were some tests that I would even retype them AGAIN after rewriting them out. Repetition is KEY in Nursing School.
8. Use Your Resources
One of the best tips I had ever received was from a teacher that said to “always use your resources”. That more specifically means to use resources your professors provide for you, use resources your textbooks provide for you and even use resources your classmates provide for you. A lot of the exams will come from test banks directly from the text books and the text books will provide you with study materials that can and will follow the exams.
One thought on “How to Get Through Nursing School”