Here's what you need to know before starting nursing school

There are a few key things that you have to know before starting nursing school so you can set yourself up for success. We're going to talk about them in this video. Let's dive in. So here's what you need to know before starting nursing school. The first thing is you gotta know how much time it's actually going to take. So I was talking to a friend recently and she's like, Christina, I knew that nursing school would be hard, but I did not know that it would actually be this hard. And I hear that all the time from nursing students, something along those lines that they expected it to be difficult, but they didn't know actually how much time it would take. They didn't know that it would consume their life so much. So here are a few benchmarks that you can use to know how much time roughly it'll take you to study and do your classes and all of that so that you can know how much time to dedicate to nursing school even before you start. So you can really start to plan your life around nursing school. So the first thing I always tell nursing students is to try to study for two hours outside of class for every hour that you're in lecture class. So take a look at your syllabus, your class calendar, whatever your school gives you, take a look at what classes you're taking, how many hours a week you're going to be in specific lecture classes. So let's say you have a fundamentals class for three hours on a Wednesday or a pharmacology class for two hours on a Tuesday. You want to plan for studying for two hours and outside of class for every hour that you are in lecture. So if you have a three hour fundamentals class, you're going to study for about six hours outside of class per week for that one class. And if you have a two hour pharmacology class or two hour nursing assessment class, you would study for two hours outside of class for each hour you're in class. So that would be four hours. If, if it's a two hour class, you're studying for four hours outside of class per week for that one class. Now for skills lab, don't forget skills lab because you do have a skills class. So that could be a nursing head to toe assessment class. Or if you're just practicing regular skills like IVs or catheters or anything like that, that would be a skills class. So you want to plan to practice your skills or study for that class for one hour outside of class for every hour you are in your skills lab or skills class. So if you have a two hour skills class, then you're going to study for two hours or practice that sk two hours each week now, something that a lot of nursing students forget about or maybe just don't plan for. Because to be honest, when you're just starting nursing school, you don't know what you don't know. Like, you don't know really what it's going to be like. You don't really know what to expect. And here's something that I really want you to keep in mind. Clinical days are going to be very exhausting for you, especially in the beginning because there's so much to know in such a short amount of time. And you're going, you, you really don't know how the floor works, how your clinical site works. You don't really know what you're doing. And that's okay. When you're just starting nursing school, like that's totally fine. Give yourself the space to just be exhausted at the end of your clinical days. Plan for that. It's going to be very, very tiring. So when you have a long clinical day or even after clinical, make sure that you're not planning to study or write your care plans or really get anything productive done because you want to give yourself that space and that time to rest. This is something that is a big mistake that nursing students make, is not kind of buffering in that rest time where you just need to plan for really that mental and physical exhaustion after clinicals. And especially when you get into a med surg class and you're on a med surg floor at the hospital, man, it is so exhausting when you're learning everything at clinical, you're trying to do all the things. When you come home from clinical, you are going to be so tired. So give yourself that space, give yourself that time to rest. But really plan for that before going into your term so that you really kind of know how much time it's going to take. You just don't plan on studying or writing your care plan or doing a research paper or anything. After your clinical day, give yourself time to sleep and rest and eat a lot. Now when you are taking these rest breaks like after clinical or things, it's very, very important that you actually, when you do study, that you're focused and you're diligent and you know exact what to study. So grab this free checklist that I have for you. It's our free study checklist that walks you through what you need to be studying in nursing school. It is going to be so helpful for you. Use it as a guide as you study so you can actually focus your study time better on the most important things. So I'll put that link down below in the description for you to snag that now, along with planning for your time and knowing exactly how much time roughly it's going to take you to study and how much time you really need to focus on nursing school. The next thing that you absolutely have to know, my friend, I cannot say it enough is dose calc. And if you've been around for a while, I say it all the time. But we still have students who DM us or write emails saying, like Christina, I had no idea that med, math or dose calc was such a big deal. Yes, it is. It is a huge deal in nursing school. You do not want to put it off. You do not want to wait to practice dose calc until you're a few days before your exam. That is absolutely not the situation that you want to be in. So start now. Start early. If you are starting nursing school in the fall, if you are starting nursing school whenever, in a few months, in six months, start dose calc now. Start practicing now. Because it's such a big deal. Here's what's going to happen. Within the first two weeks of your program, you are going to have a dose calc exam. And that is a math test that you need to pass in order to stay in your program. And know, my friend, your program is no different than any other program like that. That is just a whole thing across nursing schools, at least in the United States, you have to take a dose calc exam, a math test, and pass it in order to stay in your program. And here's the kicker. A lot of nursing schools, most nursing schools require that you get 100% on this test. Now let me tell you first so you don't freak out when you hear it from your school. You have to get 100% on this dose calc test in order to stay in your program. It's just how it is. Okay? Like I said, your school is no different than other schools. Now some schools are okay with you passing at a 90%, but that is not always the case. Okay? You need to plan on getting 100% on that math test in order to stay in your program. That's just how it is. All right? That is why we focus so much on dose calc. Inside the Nursing ESSENCE membership community, our members pass this dose calc exam. We there is no one that teaches doscalc as well as we do, my friend. We have a very defined, specific step by step process for you to follow to make sure that you get every single question right every time. It is so fantastic and so, so helpful. How we teach dose calc inside the community is going to change everything for you. So if you are confused about does calc at all, if you're worried about it, please don't be worried about it. I've got you join the community. You are going to love it. We have a full dose calc course for you to go through plus workbooks and all the things you can send in your questions to our nursing team and we will answer them for you. It's just so, so helpful. So I'll put the link down below in the description for you to check out all the details for the nursing SOS Membership community. Now dose calc is a big deal, but pharmacology is also a very big deal deal. You are going to learn pharmacology in pretty much any term that you take in nursing school. You are going to learn a few meds here in Fundamentals and then a lot more in med Surge. And as you go through your program, especially as you go to clinical, you are going to learn a ton of pharmacology, my friend, the entire way through your program. And something that nursing students struggle with so, so much. They try to know everything about everything for the medications but that is just not the best way to study pharm. Like please do not learn pharmacology from a drug guide. You cannot memorize everything in that drug guide and expect to pass your exam. That is not how it works. Okay. We have a very defined step by step process for studying pharmacology that is inside the community as well. I really want to make sure that you know how to study FARM and that you know how to learn your meds faster. Because there is such a better way of learning pharmacology than nursing nursing schools teach and how most nursing students learn. Unfortunately. Like here's what I see most nursing students do when you try to learn pharmacology. You try to sit down with your drug, ADD and memorize everything in it. It's not helpful for you. So I want you to jump in the community, learn the farm for method that we teach you step by step so you can learn your meds first faster because it is such a better way of studying pharmacology. But just know that pharmacology is a huge deal in nursing school. You do need to know how the medications work in the body, what side effects to look for, how to assess your patient, how to give the medication, all of those things. They're very, very important principles that you need to know as you progress through your program and as you take care of your patients at Clinical Pharmacology is a huge deal in nursing school. Now, if you are starting nursing school soon or in a few months, there are a few key things that you have to do get ready in order to set yourself up for success next term. So click on this video here and I'm going to walk you through what you need to do to prep for nursing school after you get accepted. And if you love this video, write love in the comments below and go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I will see you in the next video, my friend. Take care. Bye bye.