How to Get STRAIGHT A's in Nursing School

Are you wondering how to get straight A's in nursing school without studying for a thousand hours per week? In this video, I'm going to give you my top tips for how to get good grades in nursing school while still having a life. Welcome to the Nursing School Show. My name is Christina Rafano, and I am here to help you pass nursing school and become an amazing nurse. So if you want to rock nursing school without completely losing your mind, hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell. Let's dive in. So is it really possible to get straight A's in nursing school? I mean, come on, everyone knows that nursing school is super hard and basically everyone fails out, right? Well, friend, I'm here to tell you it's totally possible. I know because I did it and I'm going to show you how I made it happen here in this video. The last tip, actually is probably the one that will help improve your grades the most. So stick around. Now I'm going to warn you. Get ready for some tough love in this video, because I am about to tell you the truth about nursing school that no one else will, including your instructors. One of the biggest time wasters I see nursing students falling into is reading every single thing in the textbook. Seriously, stop it. Stop it right now. Here's the reality. If you spend all of your time reading everything in the textbook, you won't have time to actually learn it and be able to critically think about it. So if you want straight A's in nursing school, here's what you need to do. Focus on studying the sections of the book that your professors talk about in class. This is the information that your professors think think is the most important for you to know and therefore is most likely to show up on your exams. Now, don't freak out if your professor doesn't teach in class and just reads from a textbook or PowerPoint. I got you. You know I wouldn't let you down. I have a whole video on how to get better grades even when your instructor doesn't teach. So click on the card to check that one out. So. So, friends, seriously, stop reading everything in the book just for the sake of reading. There is just simply not enough time and it's not even an efficient way to study. Focus on studying and reading about the topics that you learned in class. You know that nursing exams are all about critical thinking, right? So if you're spending all your time just reading for the sake of reading, that's precious time that you're wasting by not actually thinking, thinking about and learning and tying it all together. Now, of course when you show up for your exams, there will be random questions that your professor just pulled out of a footnote on page 13,754. But those questions will be few. So when you see one, just do your best to answer it and move on to the next question. The alternative is to read every word on every page but not have time to actually study it and learn it. Now that will make you fail your exam when you don't actually learn anything. I talk a lot about my study process and how I rocked my nursing school exams here in this video. So definitely click on that card after watching this video. And I also have a free nursing school study checklist for you that walks you through how to raise your grades and study step by step the easy way step. So don't miss out. We'll put that link in the description below for you to download it. Now the next study tip to get straight as in nursing school is actually a two for one. Not only will it help you get better grades in nursing school, but it will drastically decrease how much you're studying. And isn't that what we all want? Right? Here's the tip. Learn the mechanism of action first when you're studying pharmacology. Now, the mechanism of action is how the medication acts in in the body. Now here's what most nursing students don't realize. The mechanism of action is the foundation for everything else you need to know about that medication, namely the side effects. The nursing assessment the nursing considerations. Since the mechanism of action tells you how it acts in the body, that will also give you a clue as to what the side effects might be as well as the things you'll need to assess for and do so. For example, furosemide's mechanism of action is to basically get get rid of electrolytes and water from the body. It tells the kidneys to kick more of it out. So knowing that it makes sense when you learn that the side effects of it are low electrolyte levels and dehydration. No kidding. And then what things do you think you'll need to assess for? You will definitely want to be watching for their electrolyte levels lab values like potassium and sodium sodium and check for dehydration by monitoring their intake and output and checking skin turgor. Now this all makes sense, right? So focus on spending more of your time learning and understanding the mechanism of action because that will make it a lot easier to remember everything else. Now if you're a nursing SOS member, we have great news for you. We are going to be releasing a medication database for you. So instead of having to learn all those meds by yourself, you can just pull up a video and I will teach it to you. Easy peasy. So log into your dashboard to check it out when that comes up. Now this next tip is one that you should not be doing. Ever. So get ready for some serious tough love here. Are you ready? The number one reason I see nursing students not pass nursing school and fail out is falling into a fear of failure, getting caught up in anxiety and sabotaging your own success. I see this happen all the time and it breaks my heart. Here's what happens. You think there's too much to study so you just shut down and don't do anything. You get so overwhelmed with everything you need to do that you just get stuck. Or maybe you don't do as well on an exam as you had wanted to. So now you're not motivated to study because you think you'll just fail the next time anyway. Friend, listen to me. Listen to me right now. Do not fall into this trap of overwhelm, fear of failure, and ultimately self sabotage. You're just sabotaging your own success because you're not taking action. Instead of studying, you'll clean your house, maybe watch some Netflix, or if you're like me, bake some cookies because cookies are my love language. When you fall into this trap, you'll sabotage your own success ahead of time because you feel like you're going to fail anyway. So you don't study. You show up for your exam unprepared and what happens? You fail your exam. It's a self fulfilling prophecy. You think you'll fail so you don't study and then you don't do well on your test. It's a vicious cycle. So please friend, do not fall into this trap of self sabotage. This was the number one reason I was able to get straight A's in nursing school. Of course I did have my moments of baking cookies because well, who doesn't love cookies, right? But there were so many times where I Woke up at 4am in the morning to write a paper or I came home from clinical super exhausted and wrote all my care plans anyway. So friend, I am telling you, find a way. There is always a way. Pick yourself back up and get it done. No excuses. Just make it happen. I know you can do it. I believe in you 1000%. Even when you don't believe in yourself, I know you are capable of more. So do not give up on yourself now. Make sure to like, comment, subscribe and share this video with a friend. And click on this video for more tips on how to pass nursing school. Or check this one out as well. And go become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I'll catch you in the next video.