A nurse educator who has coached over 5,000 students shares five ways to prepare: rest and see family now, get textbooks but skip reading ahead, master dose calculations early using her free cheat sheet, finish personal errands and appointments, and set clear expectations with family using a structured time-management tool.
In this video, we're walking through how to get ready for nursing school the right way. I have helped over 5,000 nursing students pass nursing school, and I have noticed some things that work and some things that don't. So we're gonna talk about that in this video so you can be as prepared as possible for when you start nursing school. Let's dive in. So first things first, don't freak out and try to do everything before you start your program. It is so, so easy to get caught up in wanting to read every single thing in the textbook and write all the research papers and do all the things before you start your program. We're going to talk in a minute about why that's such a bad idea. But here's what you really want to focus as much time as possible on is getting as much rest as possible and spending as much time with your family as possible. The thing is, is that nursing school is really going to change a lot in your life. You. You are going to have to dedicate so much time to nursing school for studying and for clinical and for skills lab and all of the things that nursing school requires. It's going to take a lot of time. So in the time that you have before you start your program, try to get as much rest as possible. Spend as much time with your family as possible, because things will change, your time will change, and how much time you have to dedicate to your family and to those things will change when you start your program. So try to get as much family time in as possible and as much rest in as possible. Now, before you start. Now, tip number two. You want to make sure you have all of your textbooks and all of your supplies ready ahead of time. You don't want to be scrambling last minute trying to collect textbooks or supplies or notebooks or whatever that you need for your program when you start. You want to have it all prepared ahead of time just to take really that load off and that stress off when you start. Now, here's the thing. When you get your textbooks, please do not try to read everything in those textbooks. This is such a big vulnerability point for nursing students, really, and I know how it is. I really wanted to read everything before I started my nursing program, too. I know that that is very tempting to do, but here's the thing. You don't know what you're going to actually be studying in your first term of nursing school until you get your class syllabus, until you get your class calendar. You just don't know what you're going to be learning about and so read your textbooks ahead of time without knowing what you're going to actually be learning in that term. It's kind of a waste of time and I would much, much rather you Like I said in tip number one, get ready by resting and spending time with your family so that you have more time than to dedicate to studying to reading your textbooks when you start your program, which is a much better use of your time. Now, on top of resting and spending as much time with your family as possible, the other thing that you really want to spend a lot of time before you start your program is dose calc. This is so, so important my friend. You are going to have a dose calc exam within the first few weeks of your program and you have to pass it in order to stay in your nursing program. This is across the board for nursing schools. You have to pass the dose calc exam and get those dose calc questions right so that you can stay in your program. Dose calc is a huge deal in nursing school. You will notice this when you start your program so you can really prepare ahead of time for for that dose calc exam. You can learn everything ahead of time so that you are prepared for that exam. And I have a free dose calc cheat sheet to help you out with this. So I'll put the link down below in the description for you to snag that after you watch this video. So as you practice dose calc, that is really going to be so, so key before you start your program. The better that you are at dose calc, the more that you understand it going into your program. Really the less time it's going to take you to have to learn it when you're in your program. It's a better use of your time because you want to focus on everything else that you have to study when you start nursing school. You don't want to have to focus on trying to learn med, math and toast calc when you are just starting your nursing program. So try to get that done ahead of time so that you can focus on the other things when you start. Now tip number four is to try to get as many things out of the way as possible before you start. Doctor's appointments, anything that you have to do with your family, family events or whatever, plan meals ahead of time, whatever it takes. Try to get as much out the way as possible before you start your program so that you really don't have to think about it when you start nursing school. Like I said in the beginning of this video. Nursing school is really going to change how you manage your time. It's going to take a lot of time to study. It's going to take a lot of your time and energy when you go to clinical. It's really just going to change how you are using your time because you're going to be so focused on nursing school, you don't want to focus have to focus on other things as much as possible. So anything that you can get out of the way ahead of time, the better off you're going to be in nursing school because then you will just have more time to dedicate to it when you get there. Now, if you're a nursing SOS member, make sure that you download your nursing life map, which is your time management plan inside the nursing SOS membership community where we walk you through how to create a time management plan for yourself so that you know that you are optimizing your time and managing your time really, really well so that you can balance everything that you have to do. So it's all inside the nursing houseless membership community for you. Just click on your dashboard and you will see that there. Now tip number is to talk with your family or whoever you are living with, your roommates or whoever and set expectations. This is so important. Like I keep saying, when you start nursing school, things are going to change. You are not going to have as much time to dedicate to cleaning the house or your apartment or doing dishes or doing the laundry as you do right now. It's just the reality. You are going to be studying, you're going to be going to clinical and skills lab and all of the things your time is going to be dedicated to other things, which is a great thing. Nursing school is awesome, but we need to set expectations ahead of time to make sure that everyone is on the same page. So try to create a chore chart or at least have a plan in place so that everyone knows what their responsibilities are. You need to know what you need to be doing around the house in order to help and manage everything that you have to do for nursing school. So just make sure that everyone is on the same page. You can even sit down with your spouse or your children or your roommates and walk through. Okay, here's my course calendar. Here is what is going on in the next few months. How are we going to make this work and actually work with the people around you so that you have a plan in place and it can be a lot less overwhelming when you start. Now if you want to know more about what nursing school is going to look like for you when you start. Click on this video right here. I'm going to walk you through what to expect when you start. And if you love this video, write love in the comments below. You know that I love hearing from you. Hit that like button and share this video with a friend and go become the nurse that God created only you to be and I will see you in that next video.
