HOW TO PREPARE FOR NURSING SCHOOL

are you starting nursing school soon if so this video is for you we'll cover tips for success in nursing school things I wish I had known before I had gone to nursing school what your must-have items really are do you need all the books do you not need all the books and some study tips to help you get through all the information that's gonna be thrown at you during the course of your program if you're new here welcome I'm Liz and once upon a time I did go to nursing school I'm a family nurse practitioner now but I've been in the you know student role forever and I've worked with a ton of nursing students and it was like eight years ago so not really forever that I was in your shoes preparing for nursing school alright enough about me let's get into the tips so that your mind can be a little bit more at ease as you go into this process also side notes and so we're gonna be covering a lot of different topics and this might be kind of a long video I'm gonna put a timestamp in the comments down below so if there's a specific topic you want to hear about you can just skip right to that one or you can watch the whole thing go you obviously that's the correct choice so we're gonna start off with the most common question I get which is how do I prepare for nursing school and my friends you are not going to like this answer because the answer to that question is just relax let me tell you something nursing school is kind of crazy and you want to know why it's crazy because they are teaching you everything you need to learn to be an entry-level nurse taking care few mins that are alive and you want to try to keep them alive but that's a lot of things to learn but they know that and the whole point of nursing school is to teach you all of that you are not expected to go into this with any prior knowledge trust me when I started my nursing program my medical knowledge was knowing that the fancy name tylenol was also the same thing as acetaminophen and when I went to CVS I could get acetaminophen for a lot cheaper than tylenol and I just thought I was the bomb so that was where I was coming from guys so don't even worry if you're like I don't know anything it's fine that's literally what you are paying them all of your money to do is teach you everything you need to go so don't worry about it cramming beforehand or anything like that just just show up with an open mind ready to learn the best thing you honestly can do with your time now is prepare yourself for this next season of life that's gonna be a little bit challenging spend time with the people or hobbies that you love going into process with arrested mind and body is going to be so much more beneficial for you than going in knowing all the names of every single part of the kidney for example there will be a time in a place where you need to learn all of that but this is not that time and never fear if you're sitting there like there's got to be something I can do because I feel you of my type a friends I'm with you if you're in classes right now there are some things you can work on that would better prepare you for being a good student if you're taking classes right now figure out what strategies work best for you do you learn best by reading listening watching videos do you work better with flashcards mnemonics figure out your study strategies now that way you don't have to worry about that when you get to studying in nursing school and you can just get right into the material and focus on what you need to learn a huge part of the challenge of nursing school is learning how to actually study best for the material presented to you because nursing school is a very different type of learning you need to really understand the concepts rather than just memorize facts because they'll present you with questions and if you have taken any nursing questions you know that they'll give you a question and all the answers are technically correct but one is the most correct so you really have to learn to study in a way that allows you to understand the material so that you can answer the most correct question I I know I feel your pain and in addition to refining your studying techniques you could also just work on setting up beneficial lifestyle habits work my meal prep ring stop going to bed at 2:00 a.m. start waking up a little bit earlier in the morning like you will when you have to go to class exercise here and there implement activities in your life that will then be a habit so you aren't trying to reform your entire life when you're in nursing school because in order to succeed in school you really do kind of want to take care of your body as well as your mind and setting all these habits up now it will help you in the long run but truly guys I would just encourage you to spend this time getting your emotional and physical body in shape rested and ready to tackle this thing that is nursing school if you know how all over like Instagram everything there's that whole like you can't pour from an empty cup quote well that's because it's true you need to fill your cup up right now with all the good stuff because your cup is only going to be filled with cash for like the next few years you're gonna be fine you're gonna make it next let's take some time to kind of debunk some myths about nursing school and give you an idea of what your programs kind of gonna look like because there's a lot floating around out there that is truly scary like have you heard nursing schools the hardest thing in the world there's a million different memes out there that show you know like the nursing profession is just being the most challenging terrible thing in the world and friends it's gonna be okay you will survive nursing school it's gonna be fine good nursing school kind of gets this rap of being the hardest thing in the world and blah blah blah blah blah I actually didn't go into nursing originally in my undergrad and had you an accelerated program because I was so scared of what other people had said about it that I was like I can't do that no no no and then I had to go back anyway later and do it and it was just a whole catastrophe so don't let it scare you I think some of the whole scariness around it is people you know when you're involved in it you want to make it sound like my struggle is justified so they kind of talked it up a little bit and that's kind of how the whole culture surrounding it has kind of gotten is like nursing schools the worst most evil thing ever but let me level with you is it challenging yes is there a lot of information yes will you have to study more than your peers might have to study if they are in a different major yes depending on what major they are but is it the hardest thing ever no you can absolutely do it it may take a little bit more time and effort than other majors and it is by no means easy but if you dedicate the necessary effort and time into it you will be fine I promise do not let the fear of nursing school stop you from going and don't bet like focus all your energy on oh my gosh this is gonna be so hard cuz all that's gonna do is send your anxiety through the roof and it's not productive this is nothing that you cannot handle look at all the stuff you've already done in order to get here you're gonna be totally fine okay let's just take a brief overview really quick look at what nursing school is kind of gonna look like for you if we break it down really simple there are two components of Nursing school there is the didactic which is like the book course learning lecture work and the clinical portion for you are in your clinical setting working with other nurses learning these skills in the areas you may want day work I am going to make an haier video very soon on how to do well in clinical as a nursing student so we won't dive into that too much today but the basics of it are show up early sit down as little as possible it's not the time to socialize friends no no and be as helpful as you possibly can nobody expects anything of you as a nursing student so don't stress about that go out with an open mind ready to learn and anytime someone says hey do you want to do this see this the answer is always yes yes I do yes let's go and you're gonna see so much that way and by being helpful you'll be really approachable and other nurses will want to pull you into things cuz then you were helpful and they like yeah the harder part I think here is the buck work that you're gonna have to tackle so let's take a minute talking about that and some tips on how to succeed there there are some tough classes that you're gonna encounter Paso Farm you know you've heard the stories about these I'm not gonna go into a ton of detail in this video but I do have several videos that I think would be really helpful for you to check out when you get a minute I have one on how I study in general in nursing school how to study in farm how to study in Paso and how I used my tablet to take notes I'm gonna link those down in the description below and I would really recommend you go check those out before you dive into this whole program because they go into a lot more detail than I can't here but again I'll just summarize really quickly you want to study smarter not harder right then like we talked about there's going to be a lot of information thrown at you so study to the modules usually in nursing school the teacher provides you with modules and each module has a learning objective so hey I want you to learn the signs and symptoms of kidney failure and what your patient might look like if they were experiencing that so you go you go through lecture you study that if you have questions you refer back to that you ignore all the other stuff that's in the book because the book is gonna have all these other filler information and topics that you don't need to know so don't worry about it you don't even know don't go there use that module and the module objectives to direct your studying and your focus because that's usually the most important stuff and that's what you're gonna be tested on and don't forget to study based on your learning style guys I don't learn anything from reading and in my undergrad nursing class I didn't read honestly it like at all I know they tell you to but that's not how I learn so if that's how you learn perfect but if it's not most of the information I found in undergrad is provided to you in the lecture obviously if you need to dive deeper go read the book but for the most part I did not find that I had to find additional reading that was in the book in order to pass my class and again this is just my experience your school might be totally different so if they're really pushing the book thing by all means go read the book but for the most part in undergrad I didn't have to read too much they provided most of the information for me on their powerpoints and in in-class lectures totally different subject if you're doing a master's program but we're not talking about that right now alright now what do you do when you do have a lecture on something and you've encountered a topic that you're just like ah no I don't get it been there friend I cannot recommend enough Khan Academy on YouTube it is free you just type in on Academy and then the topic that you need to search for and they have all these free wonderful videos explaining things with pictures it's great utilize your resources YouTube is a fantastic resource remember how I was saying nailed on your study strategy use those methods you in your study strategy to drill down into those topics that are a little bit rougher for you and the biggest thing overall with managing your classwork is just planning ahead which I know is a challenge I am the world's biggest procrastinator but you're gonna want to try to plan ahead see what you can do when and start studying early because that's going to help you be the most successful and will help you forget less assignments and keep everything that you're juggling kind of organized you need some organization to go into this okay next what type of supplies do you need for nursing school I get asked this all the time and Friends it's a lot less than you think you need I think in this social media age you know everyone's always like oh you need all these weird gadgets and it's like those are cool and they absolutely might supplement you but what you really need is not a whole lot the only negative part are most of the things you actually need are like really expensive which is like your idea student I feel you okay number one thing you're gonna need is a stethoscope I you and Littman classic - throughout all of nursing school and my entire bedside nursing career it's great I love Littman stethoscopes I purchased another one for my NP practice so there you go super recommend it and all the products I talked about here I will link in the description below second thing you're gonna need are scrubs your school will tell you whatever scrubs either if they want a certain brand or if they want a certain color usually they make you get white which is like what why would you make me get white like I'm gonna obviously spill on myself this is stressful I don't have time to wash my clothes very often and you want me to wear white like that is evil but whatever your school wants they will let you know your scrub number I would get two sets that way you know even if you just do laundry once on the weekends or you spill something terrible on yourself you know one more pair to wear too should be fine if you're like a hygienic person you might want like three I don't know I had to just to and keep in mind when you're buying them that you want to buy your scrubs a little bit larger maybe then you would think you're gonna want to squat be able to move you're also going to want to accommodate some of the cookies that you might be stress eating when you're studying at midnight not saying this from personal experience at all but you're gonna want to buy scrubs just a little bit bigger you never know what's gonna happen here okay just a little bit bigger shoes your school probably specify this as well a lot of schools require write leather shoes I got mine from shoes for crews it's a website you can go on there they're like all non-slip in terms of nursing's shoes in general I wore dance goes in my nursing practice which but those are expensive they're like 150 bucks so and they do have white so if you can swing that like I mean sure they're really comfortable I love them but I didn't want to wear white shoes I knew when I became in there so I was like I'm not gonna plop down the money I'm just gonna get these where I'm doing my somewhat you know limited clinical hours and the grand scheme of things but dance those are great if you can swing that or shoes for crews has more affordable like $30 leather nursing shoes next compression socks I did not listen to the people who told me to buy compression socks when I was in nursing school and that was the dumbest thing I've ever done compression socks for your long days where you're standing whether you're in lab or in actual clinical either way they're helping let's logo a backup my feet hurt infinitely less love up again don't need a ton of pairs but I would highly recommend them I'll link them down below you're also gonna want to buy a planner I liked the ones with the weekly views later I used a bullet journal whatever works for you you're just gonna need a really durable planner don't get the ones that are all like Oh recycled paper that looked cute then their friend done that fell apart on like week 3000 but it's recyclable nope those don't hold up very well get a durable planner you are going to use whatever style you want I always got the need ones I think from Target they also have very fancy pretty once you do you friend whatever you want just the planner that you will use and it's easy enough to carry with you in a backpack or a bag and then like a laptop and or a tablet so truth time when I was in nursing school iPads were like the first generation of iPad had just come out and there was no you didn't write on your iPad so that was not a thing but now it is and like I said I have a video on taking notes on my iPad I use that to take notes in my nurse practitioner program and loved it GameChanger if you can swing an iPad if you can ask for one for your birthday or a holiday do it friends now they have the more affordable version you don't have to get the iPad pro you can take notes on it pull in charts highly recommend if you can do that if not obviously sans the world people have been taking notes on paper for eons that's what I did it was fine but if you can swing a tablet to take notes on that's a good life I also had a laptop that I would do on my paper writing on discussion boards looking up all my papers all of that that's totally up to your preference I think it made me I think it makes life easier in school to have a laptop but if you don't want one and I you can get like the little keyboards for your iPad all that good stuff that's totally your preference but you will need some kind of a computer or a tablet alright those are kind of the set things there's also going to be a few other expenses that your school throws at you and they will send you a list to say like you know these are all the things we want you to have for clinical like mine maybe get a blood pressure cuff and you know other random items I never ended up using but it's fine they'll send you that list and there's a few other items I used in clinical that were cheap and easy but I'll luncheon that again in that video which is coming soon and in addition to the supplies that your school sends to you that you will need you'll also need your immunization records and you will need to be CPR certified so some schools do that for you mine did not I had to go out and buy the class and buy pay for it and you also may need new immunizations so you'll probably have to be up-to-date with your flu shot usually to enter any Hospital in the area and you will need your annual TB test as well as any other immunizations you may have missed earlier in life your school can tell you that budgets some money for that as well because some of the the CPR class can I think is like a hundred bucks and the your TB test is usually like cheap like twenty five or something but still an expense to consider overall I would budget a couple hundred dollars for all the supplies records all of that good stuff and then a couple hundred each semester for books which is a total bummer and let's talk about that all right so one of the big debates here with like the nursing school textbooks is do I keep it do I sell it what do I do and do I need the digital copy or is the paper okay where do I go from there well let me tell ya only books I have ever record again from my nursing program where my assessment books that taught me like how to do an assessment and my anatomy and physiology books all the other ones I kept like med surg peds and mother-baby all of that are sitting in a box somewhere in that garage and collecting dust and pretty much the only use that they will ever have because my daughter will one day find them and flip through them and laugh at the brutal treatments we used to put people through that's about in but you do you if you're someone who loves to keep your books perfect those are the ones that I personally kept anatomy and physiology and my health assessment books other than that never really looked at them you learn everything you really need to know in your future job at your future job and they usually have resources for you where it can kind of point you in the direction of like this is more what we want you to have and then there's Google so there's that but you keep whatever and I would also ask your nursing professors if there's any books that will be reused in later semesters like med surg you're probably gonna use in med surg one and two most of the other ones you don't reuse but I would ask that I ran into that problem a few times in grad school was I got the book and then I I like sold it again and then too that's later they were like remember that book you bought and obviously still kept and I was like huh but this time I never encountered that you might undergrad so I don't think you will but I would ask your professor just in case and in terms of the physical book versus the digital it's totally up to you I would recommend getting the physical version of the ones you think you might want to keep forever and for the ones that you know you're not gonna keep I thought whatever the cheapest version was so if the digital rental is the cheapest great usually for some reason like physical rentals were still cheaper but whatever is cheapest my friend all right that covers books and last but not least let's talk really quick on time and life management I not shopping we have a video that I did where I talked about how I balanced being like a mom a wife a student and working I'll link that down below as well but I will tell you I was able to work 30 to 40 hours a week while in an accelerated nursing program I didn't have a lot of free time but it is doable if you have to work you can totally do it even if you're not working you're gonna learn need to learn to have really good time management skills so that you can still do enjoyable things in life with people you love so plan ahead know when your projects are due you're gonna have to fight the inner procrastinator I know this was something I truly struggled with because nursing school gives you a lot of things to juggle so you need to be organized and plan ahead and very proactive in your study to succeed also another tip I would give you would be to do your work before you relax it's tempting when you get home from a long day at school to sit down watch Netflix scroll on Instagram but if you sit down and get your homework done then your relaxing time later you're going to actually be able to relax and unwind without anything hanging over your head which is going to do wonders for your academic performance because you're arrested balanced human all right I think that pretty much wraps it up don't be scared guys you can absolutely do this it's nursing school is challenging it's also very rewarding you're learning so much information and you're gonna meet some of the most wonderful friends you will ever have and one day at a time people one day at a time you got this thanks so much for watching today if you're new here and Liz I'm a family nurse practitioner but I do nursing and and P related content videos on Tuesdays and I have a log on Saturdays where I just document my kind of show you what my life looks like as an NP a new mom you know all that good stuff so if you're into that consider subscribing below I'd love to have you in my YouTube family and head over to Instagram where I post tidbits throughout the week or like nursing and NP tips we always have a question of the day and today's question is are you thinking about going to nursing school I'm very already in nursing school shoot me a message down below and let me know yes when you're starting all that good stuff I'd love to hear from you okay I went to nursing school it was an accelerated program at the University of Delaware go Blue Hens I met some truly wonderful people I learned so much great experience so at the time I probably would not have said those things but looking back you learned so much and about yourself and obviously in the world of health care when you're in nursing school and I hope you grow to love the profession as much as I did don't forget to check out those other videos down below I think they'll be pretty helpful for you alright hope you guys have a fabulous rest of your day and I will see you next time bye [Music]

Channel: Nurse Liz

Views: 295,538

Rating: 4.9757085 out of 5

Keywords: how to prepare for nursing school, prepare for nursing school, nursing school, nursing school tips, nursing student blog, nursing student, nursing student tips, tips for nursing school, what do i need for nursing school, studying in nursing school, study tips nursing school, nurse liz, bsn, adn, nursing, med school, np school, how to succeed in nursing school, lpn, registered nurse, youtube nurse, tips for nursing clinical, studying in nursing, student nurse

Id: FtJ_FC2-MTM

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 27 2018