DO THIS When You Start Nursing School

If you just started nursing school, you might be thinking to yourself, how in the world am I going to pass, friend? I know every single time we hear from a nursing student who just started nursing school, me included, this was totally my experience. You get to nursing school and you kind of have this freak out moment, right? It's like everything suddenly becomes real. It used to be exciting. Now it's not so exciting because there's so much to do right from the get go. So in this video, we are going to walk through the things that you have to do within the few weeks of your program to set yourself up for massive success. Let's talk about it. The first thing you absolutely must do when you first start nursing school is to meet with your instructor. Now, I know I get a lot of pushback from nursing students. This can be really scary and intimidating, especially if you, you know, of course, don't know them very well or they might be a little scary to you. But friend, I am telling you right now, meeting with your instructor is going to be a huge deal for you going forward. You want to make sure that you communicate to them early and often that you are there to pass. Okay? Your instructors, whether you think it or not, they are there to help you pass nursing school. Even if they're hard on you, even if they are intimidating, even if they kind of make your life miserable, they're there to help you pass. So make sure that you are communicating with them often and early in your program so that they know that you are there to pass. So here's what you want to do. Go into their office or talk to them via email, if it's an online class, if you're in an online program or something, and ask them one simple question. If you were taking this class, how would you study? That's it. So that is going to help you get a better sense of how to study for their class. So your instructor, obviously they either wrote their exams or they know what's on their exams and they are there to teach you how to pass those exams, right? How to be a great nurse, how to pass your nursing school exams. You need to know how to study for their class in order to do that in order to pass their class. So asking that one simple question, if you were taking this class, how would you study? That is really going to help you get a solid study plan down and be more successful. So communicating with your instructor often as well is really also going to help. So as you go through your exams, as you pass your exams or maybe don't Pass your exams, keep meeting with your instructor, go over your exams with them if they allow you to, and especially walk through with them how you are studying. So let's say you studied a particular way for an exam. Walk through that study process with them and ask them, hey, this is what I did to study for this exam. What would you change? What would you recommend? Things that I need to add to my study plan, things that I need to take away from it. Just walk your instructor through how you were studying for their class. Give them a sense of how you are studying so that they can help you through that. Because like I said, they know their class the best. They know what's on their exams. They know how they teach. They know all of it. They have seen lots and lots of students come before you and either be successful or not. So they really know what works best for their class. So asking this question, how can I study for your class? That is going to be a huge deal for you as you go through their class. Now, the second thing that you're going to want to do absolutely as early as possible in nursing school is to make friends. Now, I know that this can be scary as well, because there is a lot of competition, unfortunate competition in nursing school. It's like you get from your prereqs and everyone's competing, trying to get into the nursing school, get into the nursing program, and then you're in nursing school, and everyone's still kind of in competition mode because you just went through a few years of competing with each other, trying to get in. But now that you're in, it's no longer a competition. Right? Like, everyone can pass. That's just how it is. Like, it's not a competition for who passes and who fails nursing school. That's not how it is. Once you're in nursing school, you're in. But I do understand that making friends in nursing school can be a little bit tricky because there is kind of that underlying competition attitude. So honestly, here's what I did when I started nursing school in order to kind of alleviate this and compensate for it. So when I started nursing school, day one, orientation day, I literally knew everyone's name in my program. Everyone in my cohort that was, I think, 40 plus students in my cohort. I knew all of their names in one day. That was how I did it. And everyone knew me as well on the back of that. So it was a very good way to make sure that you get to know everyone and kind of cut the tension a little bit because it really Just helps people kind of communicate with each other and get to know each other when you're, you know, when you're me, when you're going and meeting everyone and say, hey, you should meet this person, or you should meet this person. And kind of connecting people together. That really helped to break the tension up that first day and moving forward. So everyone knew that they could come to me if they didn't know someone's name, if they didn't know who someone was. I was kind of that connector between people, and it worked really well. So that was how I did it. And I would recommend it to you. Maybe you don't need to meet every single person on the first day. That's fine. But definitely try to meet maybe 2, 3, 5, maybe 10 people as you go through your classes in the first week. So introduce yourself, get to know people, Grab their phone numbers, text them. Just get to know your fellow students. And that, my friend, is going to be so, so beneficial for you. You cannot do nursing school in isolation. We talk about it all the time. Community is everything. That's exactly why we created our nursing SOS Membership community. We do not want you to do nursing school alone. You do not have to figure it out all by yourself. That is not what you are here for. That is not how God created us. We are not supposed to do life alone, okay? Not how it goes. That is not how you're going to be successful in nursing school. You are going to be so much more successful if you have friends along the way, people to come alongside you and encourage you and help you and teach you through things. It's just going to be so beneficial. So that is what I recommend, getting to know your other classmates. Like I said, you don't have to know everybody's name on the first day. That's okay. But definitely make it a goal just to introduce yourself or to get to know somebody, maybe one, two, three people each day. Just talk to new people. And this can be a little bit trickier if you're in an online program, but most online programs do have, like, a discussion board. You'll need, like, Canvas or Blackboard. There's different, you know, different things that your school will use for discussion forums or discussion boards, and so communicate with other students on those boards. Reach out, you know, be proactive, active with this. Don't wait for someone else to come and talk to you. They probably won't. You should be the person to go out and start those conversations, and that's totally okay. So then, as you go through school, Then you have more contacts. You know, the other students in your class, you can really lean on them, ask them questions, they can ask you questions. You know their strengths and weaknesses, they know your strengths and weaknesses, and you can really just support each other in the best way possible. And here's the best part with this. One of the best parts is that when there's a deadline coming up or, you know, the care plan due, or you have an exam or a clinical day or something, you can remind each other that those things are coming up. So in nursing school, I remember there were several times where, I mean, these deadlines just come to you at rapid fire, as rapid fire, right? So you have clinical, then you have an exam, and then you exam one day and an exam the next day and a paper due and a project and all of these things. So it could be very, very helpful when all the students come together and you have like your friends group, right? And then you're always reminding each other like, hey, just remember that we've got this coming up and that coming up, you know, so it could just be a lot easier when you're doing it together rather than in isolation. Because like I said, nursing school is not a competition. Don't treat it like a competition. Even if the other students in your class kind of are. Does that make sense? So just even if everyone else around you is kind of treating it like a competition, you don't have to. You can be the one to break that tension and connect everyone together and make it a more friendly community place, if that makes sense. So I highly, highly recommend that. Now, the third thing that you absolutely have to do within the first few weeks of your program is to prepare for your exams. Now, I, of course, your exams are going to teach you on a lot of what you learned in lecture, but there's going to be a few things that will show up on every single exam, and you have to know what those are. So click on this video here, I'm going to walk you through that, so you can really do so, so well on every exam that you take. And you're not going to be blindsided by the questions that they throw at you. So click on this video here and I'll walk you through that and go become the nurse that God created only you to be. You're going to do great, my friend. Take care. Bye.