HOW TO PREPARE FOR NURSING SCHOOL

Hello, Hello. My friend Christina here with nursingschoolofsuccess.com and today in this video, we're going to talk about how to prepare for nursing school. So I've actually got three tips here to help you get organized more, get everything ready for this new term in nursing school. I know you've got so much to do, so we're going to have a lot of fun today because I'm going to walk you through three things you've got to do. So the first one that you will definitely need to do before nursing school, obviously is to get your supplies. So you've got a lot like clinical supplies, lecture supplies, lab supplies, like just collect everything that you need. And to make this super, super easy for you, I actually have a clinical supplies checklist to give to you today. So that link is down below in the description for you to snag it. It's just a checklist of all the supplies that you'll need to during nursing school. So make sure that you download that. It's totally free. So there's that link is up below. Like I said, just snag it, print it off and use it as you're shopping for your clinical supplies. So things like stethoscope, make sure you've got a watch, got a pen, light, everything you need for school for not only lecture class, but then clinical as well. So that clinical supply list will really, really help you kind of get everything organized. So for sure you will definitely want to download that and print it off. Now the next thing that I want to talk about, so this is all part of number one, is to get your supplies ready. One of the biggest things that you need is a planner, of course. So you've heard about a gazillion times, right? You've got to plan your life in nursing school because there's so, so much that you've got to keep track of and remember. So it can be really, really tough to keep everything in your mind, keep everything organized. So, so you've got to have a planner and a schedule written down somewhere so you know everything that's going on and you don't like drop any balls or lose track of anything. So make sure that you've got a planner. And I did want to mention too, that the next time we open enrollment for the nursing SOS Membership community, we have an undated, reusable planner for you. It's a nursing school planner that will help you really get organized. That is a bonus for, for the next time that enrollment opens. So if you are Currently a nursing SOS member. It's already there for you to snag. So just log into your dashboard and snag that planner. It's already there for you up there. If you are a nursing SOS member. If you are not a nursing SOS member, do not worry. The next time we open enrollment, which will be very soon, if you enroll at that time, it is part. It's a bonus if you do enroll in this next enrollment. That's happening pretty soon, so make sure to get on the wait list. That link is down below in the description. If you do want that plan, it'll help you out so, so much so I hope that helps. So that is my tip. Number one for you is to get all of your supplies that you need for nursing school before nursing school starts. I do not want you to get to the first week of school and get to that first day of class or that first clinical and say, oh, my gosh, I forgot my stethoscope, or, oh, my goodness, I don't have a watch, or, oh, my gosh, I don't have binders, or, you know, all the things that you need. So make sure that you really have everything prepared and ready to before you start nursing school. It's just gonna totally make everything a lot less stressful. Go a lot smoother for you that first week of school. So you're not trying to, you know, get everything. You know, you're not dropping any balls. You know, we got, like, so much stuff going on, you do not want to forget about anything that you need. Now, the second thing I wanted to talk about is how to organize your clinical bags. So I. Preferably. My preference that I'll talk about here is to have a separate bag for lecture and a separate bag for clinical. So actually, I have them here. I just used a backpack. Backpack. This is the North Face. This is like a gazillion years old. I've had this thing forever. It's my favorite. So I just had a backpack for lecture class, and then I would use just a drawstring bag, just like this one. This was actually the one that I used. This is just Adidas. I would just. This is exactly the one that I used for clinical. So I would always take this one to clinical with me. And it was a lot better for me to keep things separate. So I had a separate bag for lecture and a separate bag for clinical. And here's why. Because most of the time, at least in my program and from what I've seen from the majority of other students, is that clinicals tend to be on a different day, like a totally different day, because they're long, right? They're like 8, 10, 12 hours of clinical. So it's usually a full day, separate day from lecture. So it can really, really help you to have two separate bags, one for lecture and one for clinical. That way you can just grab whichever one you need and you're good to go. Now, I will say, however, I did take my lecture bag to clinical, so I wouldn't necessarily bring my clinical bag to lecture because that was just like sitting in lecture and studying and doing those things. I didn't need my clinical bag, but I, I would take my lecture bag to clinical, and here's why. Because I would find myself having these kind of short pockets of time, whether we got there early and the instructor wasn't there yet. Cause I'm always, always early, got there early and weren't quite ready to go. So I'd sit down and study. Or during the short lunch break that you get during clinical, I would study. Or if we, you know, something came up and we, you know, had to wait for a little while after, you know, any small pockets of time, I would study or write my care plans or things. So it was really, really nice to have two different bags, one for lecture and one for clinical. And then for clinical, I would take both. So I would make sure that I had my lecture stuff with me at all times, so I could study anywhere and that I also had all my clinical stuff, of course. So. But I wouldn't necessarily do it the other way around. You see what I'm saying? I wouldn't necessarily take my clinical bag to lecture. I didn't need my stethoscope or anything if I was just going to be sitting in class all day studying, unless I was going to skills lab. So I hope that helps getting two different bags for those two different purposes. That way when you wake up on the day of lecture, you know which one to grab, you don't need to grab, you know, you know that everything is all in one place and you're not going to forget anything because you're always keeping everything in the same place and it's all organized. Now, the third thing that I want to talk about is how to organize your binders. So I had a binder system that I maintained all throughout school. So I would have two separate binders to go in the two separate bags. So one binder for lecture and one binder for clinical. In the first half of my nursing program, we also had skills Skills lab. So I would, I did get like a little, what do they call them, like quarter inch, maybe binders. Quarter, half inch binders. Maybe a little, little thin binder for my skills lab because that really only had a few pieces of paper in it and like the skills check off sheets, like the checklist and stuff, you know, that's not a ton of paperwork. But in my lecture binder. So this is my third, third quarter lecture binder. This thing I think is like 3 or 4 inches. I mean these get a massive binder because you will need it for lecture. Because for lecture you've got everything. You've got your study aids, your modules, the Syllabus, you've got PowerPoints. If your instructors give you PowerPoints that just tons of paperwork and your notes and everything that you will need to fit in this binder. So for lecture you'll need a huge, huge beast of a binder. So definitely get a big, big binder for that. So I like having separate binders, one for clinical, one for lecture, and one for your skills lab or skills check off, skills class, whatever your school calls it. So lecture, definitely, definitely, definitely get a big, huge binder for that. For clinical you can get a little skinny one too. I didn't really get a huge one, you know, definitely not one that's like four inches for clinical. Because you only have, you know, a few things you want to bring like a care plan template, maybe some paperwork that you have on your patients, like the database or your, your patient's care plan, whatever your, your school calls that. So you'll have a few papers in your clinical, in your clinical binder, but it's not going to be a whole bunch of stuff like lecture. So I wanted to walk you through kind of how I organize my lecture binder. So always what I would do to help me really stay organized. This is kind of like having a place planner, but it's kind of a cheat way to do it is if your school gives you a calendar or a syllabus or, or kind of an outline of what's happening, like kind of a schedule of the classes. I would put that in the front. So this is the whole calendar of what we were going to cover throughout the whole term. And then I had all, you know, all the dates and all the topics of class and everything here so you can see it's like all X'd off because I did it already. I already graduated, so it was all there. Very, very easy to see. And I knew exactly what was coming up and when and what I needed to do. So I made it really, really easy. Now when I. This is how I had my binder set up, I didn't get any. I never invested in, like, the super snazzy and fancy, like, binder tabs. I think you could do that. You know, like the sheets that have, like, the little tabs, like the colored binder tabs, you know what I'm saying? Like, they're like red, blue, and green and all those things. But I just did post it notes and that really worked for me. So post it notes on all the lectures here, on all the PowerPoints and all the modules. So for all the modules, I just had all my tabs based on what unit we were in or what module we were in, which kept really everything nice and organized. And I always knew where everything was. Then when it came to an exam or it came to finals and we were covering, say, unit one and two, you know, I just had unit like one and two here, and those are all I needed to study. So make sure to print off everything that your instructor gives you before class. Personally, I really like printing everything. I don't like having. I never liked having, like, my PowerPoint notes or study guides or things online. I know they give it to you online, but I personally liked to print it off and physically write it out. Like, you can see the PowerPoint here, and then you can see all my notes on the side from class. So that's. That's my preference. Whatever works best for you. But this is how I organize my lecture binder. I think it really works. I think it really, really helps. You can kind of do the same thing with your clinical or your school skills lab if you have different units or kind of different, you know, different modules for those as well. My school didn't really. I mean, we had like, obviously the different skills that you had to learn, but I didn't have to do like different, you know, like a post IT note system, like tab system for each of those. It just wouldn't have made sense. So really the two big things that I wanted to note here was definitely put your schedule in on the front cover here. That was definitely nice to make sure that that's, you know, the first thing you see when you have your binder is you, you know, you've got your schedule there. And also I think you can see on the sides here. On the sides. I might be kind of light there. Okay. On the sides there. I did keep track of my. Oh, it was kind of upside down. I put the numbers of how many Hours I did in the skills lab. So for each week you'll need, or at least each term, you'll need a particular number of hours for your skills lab, if you have a skills lab as part of your term. So like I said, in the first half of my nursing school, we had to do skills lab, where we're in the skills lab, we're learning like catheters and injections and IVs and all that stuff. So we needed a particular number of hours. So I would actually just right here on the calendar how many hours I did that week. And then, you know, I just added all up. That way I can make sure that I was on track. And that way you don't get to the end of your term and you've got like 15 hours to do, because that is the last thing you want to do when you're coming up on finals week, when you are, you know, trying to get all your clinical hours in as well. You do not want to have 10 or 15 hours of your skills lab time to do in the last week of school. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. So get in the skills lab lab early so that you can get a lot of practice in early and get those hours out of the way. Cause you will need those hours if that's part. If that's where you're at in your term. If you've already did it, great, no problem. But if you do need those skills hours, do them early. So I hope this helped. So the first thing that we covered was to get all the supplies that you need. Like I said, I do have a free clinical supplies checklist for you. That link is down below in the description for you to snag it. I hope that helps. And of course, that undated and reusable planner that we have, part of the Nursing SOS membership community right now. So enrollment will be opening very soon. If you want to join the waitlist for that, definitely do it. Because the next time we open enrollment, that will be a bonus. You will get as a bonus to joining the Nursing SOS membership community, send you an undated and reusable nursing school planner, which is fantastic. So if you're already a Nursing SOS member, do not worry, you've already got this. Just log into your dashboard in the community and download it. It's there for you already. And so the next thing we talked about was the clinical bags. So this was my clinical bag. Just a drawstring backpack and then just a normal backpack. For my lecture class, I do recommend bringing both your clinical bag and your lecture bag to clinical. That way if you ever find any pockets of time that you're just kind of sitting around like lunch, or if you get there early, you know, you can study in those small pockets of time that you've got, you know, kind of by yourself. And then the third thing we talked about was how to organize your binder. So like I said, make sure that you've got your schedule in on the front here and then the tabs throughout so you can keep everything organized. And I like to print off the PowerPoints, have the PowerPoint there and then write my notes here. And actually, if you are a nursing SOS member too, make sure to check out the study success course inside of the Nursing SOS membership community, because I actually walk you through my exact note taking process. So actually, and then I'm thinking about it, I actually walk you through how to do all of this. So if you are a Nursing SOS member, check out the study success course inside the membership community because I walk you through exactly how I take notes in nursing school. So that will help you out a ton. So if you guys have any questions about how to prepare for nursing school or get ready or get organized, let me know in the comments below. Congratulations on starting a brand new nursing school term. It's so exciting, a brand new year. So I'm super stoked for you. I'm going to be here the whole time for you, so if you have any questions, let me know. I'm always here and I hope you guys have a great weekend and great rest of your week. We'll chat soon. Take care. Bye. Bye.