How to Start Nursing School in 2026 | 5 Study Strategies I Wish I Knew Sooner

If I could go back and start nursing school all over again in 2026, I would do a ton of things differently. And honestly, I probably would have saved myself a ton of hours of wasted study time, countless tears, and just so much unnecessary stress. So whether you are just starting out or you're already in survival mode, wondering if you're doing this whole nursing school thing wrong, stick with me, my friend. Because what I'm about to share with you in this video might just change the game for you. Let me. Let's dive in. Hey there my friend. My name is Christina Rafano from nursingsos.com and I've helped thousands of nursing students go from feeling completely overwhelmed in nursing school and drowning to finally feeling like they can pass. I have been exactly where you are right now. I struggled, I doubted myself. I wondered if I was even cut out for this. So everything that I'm going to share with you today, that comes from lessons that I've learned the hard way way and from watching what actually works for our students inside the nursing SOS Membership community. Now, I'm going to walk you through the exact strategies that I would use if I were starting nursing school over in 2026. But stick around until the end because I'm going to share one mindset shift that I wish someone had told me on day one. Now, it's the thing that really would have changed so much for me, and I think it will for you too. So strategy number one. This is a big one. I would completely stop studying the way I always had, especially in my prereqs. Here's what I mean by this. In most classes before nursing school, you could memorize just a bunch of facts, right? Then you could just go through them on a test and get an A or a B, right? You'd highlight things, you would maybe even make some flashcards, right? Cram the night before, like an A and P. And it worked. But in nursing school, it doesn't work like that, right? And this is where so many students feel like the rug gets pulled out from under them, right? You study for hours and you feel like you know the material really well, but then you sit down to take the exam and you completely blank. I remember sitting in one of my med surg exams thinking, like, did I even study for this? Like, is this the right test? The questions that were not asking me to recall facts, they were asking me to apply them and to think like a nurse. That's the difference. So if I were starting over in nursing school in 2026, here's what I would do differently. Number one, I would study for critical thinking, not just memorization. So instead of just memorizing a list of signs and symptoms for something like heart failure, I would ask myself some key critical thinking questions to really make sure that I understood it inside and out. And I'll talk more about that in just a second. Now, number two, I would use practice questions for from day one, not just the week before the exam. So practice questions train your brain to think critically and to apply what you know and to really get more comfortable with the way that nursing exams ask questions. This is so important. Now here's your quick win. For this, I put together a free critical thinking cheat sheet that has nine key questions to help you actually think like a nurse. These are the exact questions you should be asking yourself every single time that you're studying a new topic. So after every lecture or chapter, pull out this cheat sheet and walk through some of those questions. Now that's really how you're going to train your brain to answer those nclex style questions. So important. So just comment the word think and I'll send it right over to you. Now, strategy number two. And this is so important because so many nursing students just feel like I just don't know how to study for this. And they get really overwhelmed because, yeah, nursing school is a lot of information to know, right? Strategy number two is use the right study strategies in nursing school to help you pass. And I'm going to give you a couple of game changers. First, I would completely stop reading the textbook cover to cover. I know this feels so wrong, right? Because all of your instructors are telling you to do it. It feels like you're cheating or like you're cutting corners or something. But here's the truth. Reading everything before class, that is not helping you. You are spending so much time reading just for the sake of reading that you are not actually spending time on what actually matters for your grade. So instead, I use what I call the four core method. So for every single topic you're studying, I focus on four things. Pathophysiology, signs and symptoms, nursing assessment, and the nursing interventions. That's it. Patho signs and symptoms. Assessments, interventions. Boom. Done. Here's the magic of this. If you understand the pathophysiology, which is the why behind what's happening in the body, then you can figure out almost everything else. This is a huge critical thinking piece that you've got to know, my friend. So using heart failure as an example, again, if you understand that the heart just isn't pumping effectively, then blood is backing up, then suddenly the symptoms just click. You will understand them better when you know the pathos. So with left sided heart failure, blood backs up into the lungs. So what are you going to see? Well you're going to see things like pulmonary symptoms like crackles, dyspnea and a cough. And then with right sided heart failure, blood backs up into the body. So now you're going to see things like peripheral edema, jugular vein distension and hepatomegaly. The patho explains everything else. You don't have to memorize this giant list of symptoms, you just have to understand why those symptoms are happening and then it will all click. So write this down. Patho signs and symptoms, Nursing assessment and nursing interventions. If you study every topic through that lens, you are going to cut your study time down and actually understand the material better because you will finally be connecting the dots and critically thinking about it. And by the way, the four Chord method is just one of the study frameworks that I teach inside the nursing SOS Membership community. So you won't be just memorizing things but actually understanding them. So if you want a better study plan my friend, that works for you. I will put the link in the description below for you to check it out. Now which of these strategies is hitting home for you so far? Write love in the comments below if they've been helpful for you so far. Because dude, studying in nursing school is so hard and it takes a while to figure out what actually works for you. I have been there and I hope these strategies are helping you. So write love in the comments below because that's just what we do here on My Channel now strategy number three and this one is going to save you so much time. So much time. I would focus on the must know content and let go of the idea that I need to know everything. Game changer. Now here's the truth that no one tells you. Not everything in your textbook is equally important for your nursing school exams or for the nclex. Mind blown. I know right? It feels like everything could be on the test. But here's the thing. There are certain topics, certain concepts, certain patterns that show up again and again and again. Now here's where it gets really interesting. The NCLEX and most nursing school exams are designed to test you on one thing and this one thing only, can you keep a patient safe? That's it. So the must know content is almost always related to patient safety, nursing priorities and clinical judgment. So if I were starting nursing school over in 2026, I would ask myself these questions about every single topic I studied. What can go wrong? What are the complications and what are the red flags? What do I do first? What's the priority? Nursing action. The NCLEX loves loves these types of questions. What do I teach the patient? What do they need to know to stay safe at home? When you filter everything through those questions, you'll be able to focus on what matters most. Now, here's an example. Let's say you're studying diabetes. So instead of trying to memorize every detail about type 1 versus type 2 diabetes, here's what I'd focus on. What can go wrong? So we're talking things like hypoglycemia, hyperglycemia, dka, and hhs. What do I do first? Well, we're going to want to assess blood glucose levels, check for their symptoms, and then based on that, then we can make a decision, decide what the next steps are, and then what do I teach the patient? So they'll need to know the signs of hypoglycemia or the signs of hyperglycemia. They're going to need to know when to check their blood sugar levels and what to do if it's too low. That, my friend, is the information that's going to show up on your nursing school exams. And the nclex, it's a safety test. Now, here's a common mistake. To avoid spending three hours color coding your notes when you don't even know the signs of hypoglycemia yet. All right? So we want to prioritize like a nurse, because that's what they're going to test you on. Now, strategy number four, and this is super important one, I would protect my confidence like my life depended on it, because it kind of does in nursing school. And here's the thing. Nursing school has a way of making even the most confident people feel like total frauds. You are surrounded by people who seem like they have it all together, right? You're getting grades that are lower than you've ever gotten before, and you're being asked questions in clinical that make you just totally freeze up. And then slowly, that little voice starts creeping in. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe I'm not smart enough to be here. Maybe I don't belong in nursing school in the first place. I remember walking to my car after a hard exam and trying not to cry. There were people all around, and I was trying my hardest to hold it together. I was so worried that I was going to fail out and everyone else seemed to get it except for me. And that imposter syndrome was loud. But here's what I know now that I wish I knew then. Getting overwhelmed Sometimes in nursing school, it doesn't mean that you're failing. It means that you're growing and you're pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone a little more every day. Nursing school is supposed to be hard, my friend. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it right. So if I were starting nursing school over in 2026, I would stop comparing myself to other students. Their journey is not my journey and their journey is not your journey, my friend. And honestly, most of the people who look like they have it all together are struggling too. Their journey just might not be showing it now. Trust me, trust me, trust me on this one. You would not believe the number of emails that I get every single day from nursing students struggling in nursing school. It is wild. So if you think that you're the only one, I promise you, my friend, you are not. I would also surround myself with people who lift me up instead of being what I like to call joy suckers. So whether that's a good study group, an online community like the nmc, or even just one friend who gets it, find your people. The people who will support you. Your confidence directly affects how you're going to show up in nursing school. Are you going to study effectively or not? Are you going to raise your hand to do a new skill at clinical or not? When you walk into an exam, are you going to believe that you're going to feel fail or are you going to believe that you're going to succeed? If you believe you're going to fail, your brain is already working against you. But if you go in feeling prepared and like I got this, then that changes everything, my friend. You can do this. So protect your confidence. Now strategy number five. I would start thinking about the NCLEX from day one. Not the semester before graduation or even after graduation. Kind of like what I did. Now here's what I don't want you to hear with this one. I am not saying that you should be stressing about the NCLEX the whole time. But here's the thing most nursing students don't realize. The way that you study for your nursing school exams should be the same way that you study for the nclex. Here's what I mean by that. The NCLEX tests your critical thinking, your prioritization and patient safety. And guess what? Nursing school exams Also test you on critical thinking, prioritization and patient safety. So if you're studying in a way that prepares you for those critical thinking questions now, then you're already doing that nclex Prep. Do you see what I mean? You're getting that practice in over time. You're getting better a little bit every single day and that effort is going to pay off. So in 2026, that's a huge study strategy. You can't miss practice prioritization questions and critical thinking questions regularly. I would ask myself, what would I do first? I would get comfortable with the idea that nursing school exams aren't about picking the right answer. They're about picking the best answer, right? That's going to keep the patient the safest, which of course then is technically the right answer. And I have a huge mindset shift that is so important that I really wanted to share with you. So so far we have stop studying like you're in your prereqs, right? Use the right study strategies for your nursing content. Let go of needing to know everything and focus on those must know content points that are most likely to show up on your exams. We want to protect your confidence and start NCLEX Prep earlier. And this golden thread through all of this is that nursing school is not about being perfect. It's about being better than you were yesterday. I spent so much time beating myself up for not knowing everything or for making mistakes or for just not feeling good enough or smart enough to pass. But the students who succeed in nursing school and the nurses who are doing so amazing in their careers, they're not the ones who never struggled. They're the ones who kept going. Even through the struggle and the hard times of nursing school. My friend, you do not have to have it all figured out. You just have to keep showing up every day, keep learning and keep going. And we're going for progress, right? Perfection is not the name of the game here, but also, like we said before, critical thinking. This goes a long way to helping you pass your exams. So the next thing that you're going to want to do is watch this video here where I break down the seven must no strategies to get those tricky prioritization questions right on your exams. And if this video helped you hit that like button, it really does help more nursing students. Find my channel. And don't forget to download the free critical thinking cheat sheet that I have for you. Just comment the word think and I'll send it over to you. Or you can get it down below in the description and as always, my friend. Go. Become the nurse that God created only you to be. And I will see you over there in that next video.