3 things I wish I had been MORE PREPARED FOR in nursing school

Hey there, friend. My name is Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and today in this video, we are talking about three things that I wish that I had been more prepared for in nursing school. So whether you are just starting nursing school now or you're already in nursing school or have been in nursing school for a while, I hope this video will be an encouragement to you and really help you stay focused and stay more motivated so that you can pass. So hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let's dive in. So the first thing that is super not cool about nursing school and is a big problem is comparison. And the comparison, let's just call it a comparison trap. I think that there. What is it with nursing school? Let me think through this. Maybe it might be because we're also type A and like, perfectionist. I don't know. Let me know in the comments. Like, is that. Does that feel right to you? I think that might be a big part of it. When you get into nursing school, it's like everyone's competing in their prereqs, like microbiology and anatomy and physiology, and there's only like, I don't know, 30 spots in your nursing program and you're all competing to get into one of those 30 spots, right? And so then when you get one of those spots and you get into your nursing program, then everyone's still competing with each other. It's like everyone's just in that mindset for. From prereqs, even though nursing school is not a competition. I don't. Does that feel right? Like, that. I feel like that's been my experience. What do you think? Like, tell me in the comments what has been your experience? But I. I think we're really onto something there. I think we just kind of pull that mindset from prereqs into nursing school. Even though nursing school is not a competition, we're just kind of all like in that mindset. Oftentimes of it's a competition, I have to be perfect. I have to get straight A's or whatever. And then your were just. It leads to this kind of. There can be a lot of gossip in nursing school. Have you noticed this? Like, that was definitely the case in my nursing program, which is so unfortunate. A lot of gossip just like, weird. Like, not helping other students out or not being like, super helpful to students. Like, people aren't really just, I don't know, people just aren't really open to sharing resources or sharing tips or like, helping other students kind of weird. I think it's just like this comparison thing. So for me personally, what I found is very helpful to get out of this. Not only in nursing school, but even now I'm graduated out of nursing school, I actually still find myself stuck in that comparison trap to other people sometimes. And honestly, what has worked really well for me is just getting off Instagram. What a wonder. This is so interesting. I just, for me in my personal life, I find that Instagram can be such a driver for feeling terrible about yourself. Isn't that interesting? And I have heard this from a lot of people as well. It's crazy. I felt like I was alone, but apparently it's not just me, the Instagram and seeing all these things online, it's like, oh, man, I'm only doing this. But they're doing this. So in nursing school, it's the same way. So if you are following your. Your friends or other students in your class on Instagram, or even if you're not, even if you're seeing other friends from college who are not in nursing school and they're like, going on these cool vacations or like, doing these fun things and you're like, dang it, my life stinks because I'm in nursing school, then that's comparison, right? And that's going to make you feel terrible about yourself and awful about your situation. And that's not what we want. We don't want that. Right. We want to help you feel confident and pass your exams. Right? That's why that's what you want to do in nursing school. We don't want to get stuck in that comparison trap and thinking that we're, like, worse than other people or other people are better than us or other people are even worse than us. We don't want any of that. It's not competition, my friend. Not a competition. And I think this also can show up in different ways that we don't really realize. I find for myself that oftentimes when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I tend to try to distract myself. Or, like, if I. If I find myself to be more distracted, I can often link that to, like, oh, I'm actually, like, not feeling so great about myself because I'm comparing myself to other people. So, like, if you have a friend who's doing super well in med surg, but med surg is not quite your jam. It could be really easy to not feel as motivated to study because you're comparing yourself to the other students. Does that make sense? So it's like we, we just kind of get down on ourselves. Right? We're pretty hard on ourselves, typically. I think that's just a lot of human nature. We tend to be more negative and get down on ourselves, which is unfortunately the same problem that is in the world. So as a result of that, we do tend to have those issues. So if you find yourself getting distracted, it might actually be a comparison problem. When you're like maybe just unconsciously looking at other people and being more hard on yourself than maybe you realize. I know that that has been the case for me, so just might be something to think about now. The next thing that I wish that I had been more prepared for when I started nursing school and even when I was going through the program, because every term is different, is that getting behind will absolutely take you out. Like, you cannot get behind in nursing school. Nursing school is so fast. There is so much information that you have to learn in such a short period of time. So if you get behind, if you take a few days off from studying, then you have to play the catch up game, right? So it's like double the effort that you have to put in over the next few weeks. But that's double the effort on top of everything else that you had to do. So it's. And then on top of this, I just thought of this. On top of that, you have like the stress and the overwhelm and the anxiety that can go on top of it because you are behind. So. So it just makes everything worse. Like when you, when you get behind, you still have to make up that work and catch up with your studying or your assignments or whatever. But you also have the stress, like all that added stress on top of it, not worth it. So really, here's my recommendation. I tried to study a little bit every day in nursing school and that honestly worked well for me. I do think that that is a very good way to go if you can make that happen. I know like work schedules and school schedules and clinical schedules and everything can be crazy. Especially if you're like working super late shifts or super early shifts and stuff. I get it. If you need a nap, totally fine. But try your best to study a little bit every day. I think that really helps because it's not like you need to absorb all this information all at once. But the more that you expose yourself to it and the more that you kind of have that repetition in your mind about it, then the, the longer it's going to stay in your memory almost in a way, kind of the easier you're going to learn it because you're learning little bits at a time. You're like flooding yourself trying to learn everything all at once. That's why cramming doesn't work, right. If you cram before an exam, like, maybe you'll pass that exam, but then all that information is just going to fall out of your brain. You're going to have to relearn it and restudy it all four finals, not helpful, right? We want to work. You can call this working smarter, not harder, right? So you're not going to be putting in any more hours, but you're going to be more focused when you study. Study a little bit at a time every single day. Just constantly studying a little bit, a little bit. You know, it's like the, the tortoise and the hair, right? Slow and steady wins the race. And that's how it works. I honestly am more of a hair type personality. I like to be more like that all or nothing. Like, I like to do a big thing all at once and not divided into little chunks. So I get like, where that pushback could come from. That's totally my personality. So if you're like me, I totally get it. But dividing it up a little bit every day is really going to be the way to go in nursing school. At least that was my experience. Now another thing that I really wish that I was more prepared for in nursing school, and especially as the term, the nursing school program went on and the more terms that I took, you know, like semester two and semester three and whatever, was not being so overwhelmed and like balancing everything and getting distracted. I really wish that I was more prepared for that, honestly. I think that for me personally, I think for a lot of people, the more overwhelmed we are, then the more we kind of tend to shut down and not put in the effort that we need to or not study like we need to, or not focus like we need to, because we're so distracted. Like, we just talked about Instagram a little earlier. I think that that is a huge problem in our current culture, like social media and all of these distractions that are out there that are honestly just distracting us from the things that we have to do. So for me personally, maybe this happens to you too, is that when I feel overwhelmed, I tend to be more distracted and distractible. So in nursing school, when there was so much to do, I just found myself, like flipping through my flashcards or perusing through the textbook or something. But I wasn't actually studying in depth or learning things like I should have been. I was honestly just wasting time like, even though it looked productive, it wasn't. And so I think that that can be a really sneaky thing in nursing school or really anything, honestly, when, when you're supposed to be doing something or you need to get something done, you. You have this big assignment for nursing school or you have to study for this test. But when you're feeling overwhelmed and feeling all that stress, that it's very easy to try to put those things off, kind of procrastinate a little bit on them, or do things that kind of feel like you're. You're being productive, but you're not really. That was my experience. I don't know. Let me know in the comments if that happens to you too. Help me feel less alone. Now, I know that studying and doing all the things in nursing school can be really hard. So in this video, I am going to walk you through the three study traps that, that a lot of nursing students fall for, myself included. But I don't want you to be one of them. Don't fall for those things. So definitely check that video out so you know how to avoid those study traps. And if you liked this video, hit that like button. Write love in the comments below because that is what we do around here on my YouTube channel. And as always, my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll see you over there in that next video.