NURSING SCHOOL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

What is up, my friend? Wow. I'm so excited to be back with you for another video. And today is a very special day because I asked our email subscribers what questions that they wanted me to answer here on YouTube. How fun is this? So I'm gonna go through a list of questions that you guys asked and of course, if you are not on our email list yet, you really, really have to get on that. Every single time I send an email to our subscribers, I get a whole bunch of emails back from students saying, christina, how in the world did you know that was exactly what I needed? So for real, friend, I sent some amazing stuff out to you. I have got years of nursing school tips in my brain that I want to give to you and share with the world. So you can go to nursing schoolofsuccess.com signup, you can enter your email there and you will get instant access to a bunch of those free cheat sheets that I have for you. So I hope you enjoy them. Now let's dive into the first question. So the first question is actually a two parter and it comes from Barbara. Barbara wants to know how to deal with test anxiety and drug calculation problems. Math is not my strong subject. Boy. Okay, so those are two very closely related questions, right? Anxiety and math. For many of us, we have this kind of phobia of math. We think we're bad at it, so we avoid it like the plague. But then we get into nursing school and all of a sudden you need to take your dose calc exam and get 100% on it. So that can be really, really scary. So let's talk. So the first issue here is anxiety. How to overcome test anxiety in nursing school. Now this is something that I've talked a little bit about here on this channel, but I've actually talked about it even more inside our nursing SOS membership community. So I'm going to give you my best tips for overcoming anxiety. But I love to hear from you as well. What is your best advice for other students to beat test anxiety in nursing school? Let's help each other out and support each other. Because I know that this is something that so many nursing students struggle with. So let me know in the comments. Your best tips. So my first tip is the one that really nobody tells you. It's to show up late to your exams. But not like late late, but just late enough that most of the class is already sitting at their computers waiting for the test to start. This way you're not sitting in the hall with your classmates stressing out before the exam. We've all had that moment where just minutes before the exam, you start second guessing everything that you studied because of something that someone else said. That is no good. Do not do that to yourself, my friend. I want you to walk in to your exam as cool as a cucumber, ready to conquer it. So I really recommend showing up like slightly late or right on time for your exam. Now, the second tip that I have for you is to prepare ahead of time. Now this is something that I see a lot. Students tell me that they procrastinate because they feel like they'll just fail anyway. They don't see the point, but it's like it's better not to study and then fail than it is to study super hard and still fail. But here's the thing. Do you really think that you have the same chances of failing if you study every day for two weeks or if you only study for two days before the exam? Now, this is a form of self sabotage. You are unconsciously sabotaging your success because you believe you will fail anyway. So here's what I want you to consider. Consider. Consider changing that thought of I'm going to fail anyway to I have a better chance of passing if I study. Now, if you believe that new thought, you would study more for your exams, right? So you need to focus on actually preparing for that exam rather than procrastinating because you feel like you're just gonna fail anyway. That is not a productive way to live. And it will not help your test anxiety. It will only make it worse. Now, my friend, the third tip that I have for you is to plan for your brain to freak out. Out. So here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna prepare for your exam, you're gonna feel super confident, and then you're gonna walk in there and your brain is going to tell you that you cannot do it, that you should just quit. Now. Do not listen. Your brain will for sure bring in some drama and anxiety into your exam. But do not worry, it's totally normal. Let your brain just have its moment, make its drama, and then quietly remind it that you're in charge and that you are going to give this ex you've got friend. If you're a nursing SOS member, make sure to log into your dashboard, click on the bonuses section, and you will see an audio recording that I created for you as this month's bonus. And in that recording, actually dive deeper into this subject on how to control your anxiety in nursing school. So if you're a member, make sure to check that out. It will be super duper helpful for you. So Barbara, those are my three best tips to help you reduce your test anxiety. They were really game changing for me in nursing school and I totally hope they help you out as well. Now let's talk about part two of your question because I know we have a lot of students that ask that same thing how to get through drug calculation problems. Those are really scary in nursing school. So I actually have a six step process for getting dosage calculation problems right every single time and I've written them all out on a free cheat sheet that you can download. So you could just go to nursingschoolofsuccess.com sign up and you will get instant access to that cheat sheet and a whole bunch of other cheeses as well. So this cheat sheet will include six steps for dosage calculations. Super easy peasy. So if you follow those steps, you'll get them right every single time. So other than following that six step process from that cheat sheet, I highly recommend that you always use dimensional analysis to solve dose calc questions. There are a bunch of ways to solve those like formulas and other things. But I also always tell students to go with dimensional analysis and stick with it because it is foolproof. The math doesn't lie and you will get it right every single time. So dimensional analysis is sometimes called the railroad tracks method or the factor label method. It's where you line up all your units properly and then you multiply straight across and then divide those at the end. It's super duper easy my friend. It's crazy. Like I said, the math does not lie so you will get it right every single time as long as you set that up correctly. So that is my number one suggestion for studying dose calc problems. Always use dimensional analysis to solve them. And don't worry if you're struggling with how to do it. I walk you through it in that cheat sheet that I told you about. I'm going to put the link down in the description and probably in the first comment as well. All right friend, now the next question comes from Jane. Jane asks, do you have nursing fundamentals practice questions? And the answer is no. At this time we do not have any practice questions for you to question. Quiz yourself with nursing school topics. So here are my top two recommendations. I always, always always recommend students purchase the NCLEX RN Mastery App and the Saunders NCLEX Examination Comprehensive Review Book. It's awesome. These are the two resources that I use for studying for the nclex. So they're the ones that I always, always recommend. Now this Saunders book is super, super good for an overview of all the info that you have to know in nursing school. Plus it actually has a whole bunch of like practice question to quiz yourself on. And of course the NCLEX RN Mastery app is pretty much all practice questions. Those are, it's like a test quiz bank that are divided up into topics like pharmacology, fundamentals, med, surg, lab values, all the stuff you gotta know. So it makes it really easy to find everything. So Jane, if you are taking fundamentals like you said right now, then if you want to focus on that, you can just click on that category inside the app and then just answer all those fundamental questions. It makes it so super duper easy. So those are my top two resources for where to find practice questions. I'm gonna link to both of those down in the description. So those will be affiliate links. I will receive a small commission if you do decide to purchase something through one of those links. Of course there won't be any additional cost to you. So no worries about that. Thank you so much for supporting our channel, friend. Okay, so we're gonna take one last question. I know this video is running super long, much more longer than usual. So thanks for sticking around with me through this friend. I hope that these tips have been super duper helpful for you. So the next question comes from Isabella. And Isabella asks what's the best way to remain focused in nursing school? Oh, so good Isabella, thank you so much for asking this question because I know that this is a serious struggle for so many nursing students. So really it starts with making sure that you are staying healthy. If you are not eating, if you're not drinking enough water or getting enough sleep, you can basically throw productivity out the window. You must take care of yourself or it's going to take you twice as long to get stuff done that is not efficient or effective. Do not do that to yourself. So that's my first tip. My second tip is to break down your goals into what I like to call fun sized goals. So this is a concept that I talk a lot about in our study success course inside the nursing SOS Membership community. So if you are a member, do not forget to check that out. But basically what it is is I encourage you to break up these huge tasks or goals into bite size manageable pieces so you can achieve them faster which will help you stay motivated and focused. So let's say that you have like a 10 page research paper due in two weeks. If you make a goal of researching, writing and editing the whole thing, your brain is going to freeze up on you and you will not do anything. You won't get any of it done. But if you break it up into smaller pieces and smaller bite sized goals, let's say that you need to do your researching in the next two hours. Then you can check that off your list once it's done and move on to the writing of the first section and then the next, and then the next and then the next until you've gotten through all of your tasks. It's just a lot easier to break everything into smaller tasks for you to focus on and stay super effective and productive at so you avoid the overwhelm of it. So let's just take it one task step at a time. Now my third tip, and arguably probably one of the best ones, is to completely eliminate distractions. So this is what I would do if I was in full on study mode. I would put my phone in another room and close all my other browser tabs. I would completely eliminate those distractions. Because let's be real, it is super tempting to just scroll through Instagram all day. That is not productive, friends. So I really encourage you to put all of your distractions out of sight, out of mind so you can actually allow your brain to focus. So often we're trying to multitask and juggle 50 things at once. We wonder why we never get as much done as we want. We never gave our brain a chance to get all that stuff done in the first place. So eliminating all those distractions as possible can really help you get things done. Okay friend. Wow. I know this is a much longer video than normal. Thank you much so so much for hanging out with me. And especially thank you to everyone who submitted a question for me to answer on this video. I'm so excited to see all those. I really appreciate you and your support for everything that we do here. If you thought this was super fun and you want me to answer your questions in the future, definitely write a question down in the comments and I just might answer it here on a future YouTube video. As always, thank you so much for watching friend. Now go become the nurse that God created only you to be and I will catch you next time. Take care. Bye.