5 Things To Do BEFORE Nursing School Starts (Don't Skip #1)

Here's the truth no one tells you before nursing school: what you do in the weeks before nursing school starts determines whether you walk in calm and ready to pass, or already way behind. I've helped thousands of nursing students make it through, and there are 5 specific things you need to do first. So whether you've got 2 months before you start or just 1 week, every single one of these things applies to you right now. Right now. And stick around until the end of the video because tip number 5 is a huge one that I wish someone would have told me before I started nursing school. So tip number 1, and my friend, if you only do one thing on this whole list, please, please, please let it be this one, okay? Master dose calc before day 1. This is huge. And here's the deal with this: you are gonna have a dose calc exam within the first 2 weeks of your nursing program. And yes, it's a math test, and yes, it It stinks. And yes, you do need to pass it in order to stay in your program. That is just across the board how it is. So this is a huge thing, and you want to get a head start now. Here's why this matters so much: when you start nursing school, those first couple weeks of the term are going to feel like a stinking fire hose, my friend, coming at you all at once. There is just so much to know, and all the new stuff. You've got a brand new schedule, You've got new study strategies, you've got all new instructors that you have to figure out, like, what their teaching style is. You've got new clinical sites and skills lab and care plans and all of the things. It is a lot. So you really have two options, my friend. Option 1, you walk in with absolutely nothing prepared, or option 2, you can master dose calc now before the term starts so you will be way ahead. And I think you know which one I would pick. And here's the good news: dose calc is honestly the easiest thing on this whole list to get ahead on because dose calc is all about practice and repetition. The more dose calc questions you work your way through, the more confident you're going to get, and it— the more of it will just click. Now, this is exactly why I created my 6-Step Dose Calc System. It's a simple, repeatable, totally foolproof process that you can follow to get every single dose calc question right every time. It is amazing. And I put together a free dose calc cheat sheet that walks you through that exact system step by step. So just comment Doscalc below and I will send it right over to you. Now, tip number 2, and this is one that a lot of students are doing the exact opposite of what I'm gonna tell you to do right here, and it's really, really costing them not only their peace but also massive points on their exams. This one is a big problem, okay? Do not read your textbook cover to cover before nursing school starts. I know this feels so wrong, right? Because everyone tells you to read everything in the textbook, even your instructors. You're gonna hear it all the time. But here's the thing, my friend, and I am telling you this because I learned this the hard way. When I started nursing school, I did almost everything wrong, right? And yes, I spent weeks reading the Fundamentals textbook before I started my program. But here's why reading the textbook ahead of time actually hurts you instead of helps you. You have no idea yet what your instructors are going to focus on. You have no idea what's going to show up on your exams. So all you do really is just end up spending hours and hours and hours reading just for the sake of reading because it feels productive, and almost none of it sticks because you can't connect anything together because you haven't started nursing school yet, right? I know it feels like it's so productive, but it's a huge waste of your time. So here's what to do instead. Nursing school is not testing you on whether you can memorize the textbook, okay? Your nursing exams are going to be testing on whether you can actually think like a nurse and apply what you know to a real patient. So that is a totally different skill, and it's a skill that you can build up over time with practice, not by reading 1,000 pages. Now, if you really can't help yourself and you just have to open a textbook before day 1, the smartest thing to do is to master the nursing process, okay? Because that is going to be One of the very first things that they're going to teach you in nursing school is the nursing process. If you want to break down on that, click on this video here. But please, please, please do not sit down and read your entire textbook. Save yourself the brain space, okay? You're gonna need it when you start. And tip number 3 might save your sanity more than anything else on this entire list, okay? Tip number 3 is to get your life organized before things get crazy. Nursing school is not just gonna fill up your Monday through Friday, right? It's gonna take over your entire life. So the more that you can get rest now and your life handled now, the more brain space you're going to actually have freed up for learning during nursing school. Now, there are 3 areas that are really important to focus on here: your people, your house, and your food. So first, your people. You'll want to have some really honest conversations with your family and your friends before the term starts. So let them know that this is for a season, right? You're gonna have a lot less time for things like chores, cooking, date nights, and just hanging out. Nursing school is totally doable, I promise you, but it does take up a lot of time, and setting those expectations now means a lot less shock and hurt, uh, later with your friends and your family who maybe have those expectations that you can't meet. And then kids— this one's really important. If you have kids, please plan for childcare and backup childcare. And honestly, If it were me, I'd plan for a backup for your backup, because the last thing that you want to have happen when you're heading out the door for a 12-hour clinical day is to get a call that no one can watch your littles, right? You do not want that to happen. So backup and a backup and a backup and a backup and a backup. Now second is your house. Now this sounds kind of silly, but I really mean it. Deep clean your house before the term starts, okay? Wash the baseboards, dust the ceiling fans, scrub the toilets real good, because this honestly might be one of last really deep cleans that it gets for a while, and that's totally okay, right? This is just a season, but at least we can start it off clean. Okay, and then third, your food. You want to do a little meal planning. Okay, and this does not need to be anything super fancy or anything Pinterest perfect or anything like that. Just make a simple list of breakfasts, lunches, and dinners that you already make most often, and then the ingredients that you need for each one of those.. So that way, when you're exhausted, especially after clinical, and your brain is fried, and you're standing in front of the kitchen trying to figure out what to cook for dinner, you have a plan ahead of time so that you can actually make it happen. We just want to get as much in life taken care of before we start nursing school and all that stress kicks into high gear. We want to free up our brain space in order to focus on the things that matter, which is studying, right? Now, tip number 4 is actually one of the ones that separates nursing students who keep their sanity from the ones who lose it by week 2. Ask me how I know, I was one of those. So maybe you've heard of the saying that the more you plan, the more time you actually save. I used to think planning was a total waste of time. I'm not naturally a planner, but that was not until nursing school proved me very, very wrong. Planning ahead saves you from messing things up and having to redo things and that awful overwhelmed feeling, right? So that's what we want to avoid— all of that stress and all of that overwhelm. So I have 3 quick things for you here. Number 1: get yourself a planner, please. And not just any planner, get yourself one that you can break your schedule down hour by hour. Now, this is so key in nursing school because your days get full so fast, and seeing it laid out for you really can help you keep track of your time and keep you from wasting time way better. Now, I love my Erin Condren Daily Duo Planner. You don't have to get this one, there's a gazillion of them out there, but this is absolutely my favorite. So if you're interested, I'll put the link down below in the description. Now, number 2: go through your class syllabus. Find out when your exams are, when your assignments are due, what projects are coming up for you, and when your clinical and skills lab days are. Okay, write it all out in your planner. You want to all on paper so you don't forget. Now, one heads up about this: if you spot a big project that's due later on, like week 6 or something, go ahead and make a note to jump start that early, okay? Future you is gonna thank you for that one. I always loved to get big assignments or big projects out of the way as soon as possible, and I liked to be on my own deadline and not the school's deadline, so I wasn't rushing at the last minute. I wanted to start early and get it done as soon as possible. Now, number 3 is to build your study schedule around your real days and what those look like. So here's what I mean by that. Let's say that you have a long clinical day on a Thursday, and you probably don't want to schedule anything super heavy for studying that night, right? Because you're gonna be so tired. But if you see a day with just a 3-hour lecture, that's a great day to just block in some study time, right, and knock that stuff out. So plan around your real life. So when you get that all mapped out, you'll be able to really walk into the week with a plan, and you won't be panicking last minute. And that sets yourself up for success more than the students who are gonna be scrambling trying to figure all of this out on day one. We don't want that. Now, tip number 5— this is probably the one that I struggled the most with in nursing school, and I really think that it's what a lot of nursing students struggle with too— and this is protecting your confidence seriously like your life depends on it. Because really, in nursing school, protecting your confidence kind of is a huge problem, and it really affects a lot of things. Now, nursing school has has this way of making even really confident and capable students feel like total frauds, right? Because you're going to be surrounded by students who really look like they have it all together, and you might get lower grades than you've ever gotten in your life, and you're going to get asked questions in clinical that make you feel completely like the dumbest person in the world. Again, ask me how I know. Totally been there. And what tends to happen is that slowly that little voice creeps in and says, maybe I'm not smart enough to do this. Maybe I don't belong here. Have you felt that way before? Here's something that I really want you to write down though, my friend: feeling overwhelmed in nursing school does not mean that you're failing, just means that you are growing and you're being stretched outside of your comfort zone every day. And that is a good thing. I know because I have been there. I remember walking to my car after a hard exam, like a super hard exam, and just trying not to cry. There were people everywhere, and I was just doing everything that I could to hold it all together. I was so scared in nursing school that I was gonna fail out. And that everyone got it except for me, and that I just felt so dumb all the time. So please, please, please do not compare yourself to the other students. Everyone feels this way, okay? And everyone has different strengths. My best friend in nursing school was a rock star at clinical skills, and I was, to be honest, kind of a disaster at clinical skills. I had to retake basically every skills checkoff that we did. But lecture content really came naturally to me, like pathophysiology and all of that. Give me lecture like all day, every day. But skills I was not good at. So we teamed up. She carried me through the skills, we practiced and practiced and practiced, and I carried her through lecture. So this is the move, my friend, okay? Find your people. Find the ones who lift you up. Don't make the friends in nursing school that are like the joy suckers, right? We don't want joy suckers. We want good friends. And here it is, here's your absolute key that you've got to remember, okay? Nursing school is not about being perfect. All right, it's just about being a little bit better than you were the day before. The students who make it and the nurses who go on to be absolutely amazing, they're not the ones who just never struggled and got perfect grades. No, they're the ones who kept showing up through the struggle. And when things were super hard and super scary and they felt like they were gonna fail out, but they did it anyway. And yes, it's going to be hard, and yes, it's going to be scary, but You can do this, my friend, but you need a plan to pass, okay? And I am here to give it to you. So click on this video right here, and I'm going to walk you through the must-know study strategies to help you pass your exams in nursing school. So important. And be sure to comment "DoseCalc" below, and I will send you my free DoseCalc cheat sheet. Or you can snag it in the link below in the description. And of course, if you liked this video, hit that like button, share it with your friends who also need some more help through nursing school, and write love in the comments below because that That's just what we do here on my channel. And as always, my friend, go become the nurse that God created only you to be, and I will see you over there in that next video.