How to Get Straight A’s in Nursing School (Top Tips!)
Nursing school should NOT be that hard!
In this video I am going to share all my tips and tricks for not only getting straight A’s in nursing school, but how to study more effectively, maintain your sanity, and become the amazing nurse that you were meant to be.
This is the first video in this HOW TO STUDY video series.
Stick around to make sure you get all the tips to help you pass nursing school and stay motivated during it!
Here’s what we’ll talk about:
-How to study pharmacology the RIGHT way (0:27)
-How to save HOURS studying (3:01)
-What to focus your study time on (3:42)
-The BIGGEST mindset block that’s holding you back (6:16)
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
In this video I’m giving you my BEST TIPS for how I got straight A’s in nursing school. We have a TON of amazing nursing school tips here on this channel, and today I’m going to dive deeper and share some that I’ve never shared before. So make sure to stick around until the end so you don’t miss out on any of these juicy tips. Now hit that subscribe button and click the notification bell and let’s dive in.
So my first HUGE tip for you to help you get straight A’s in nursing school is to study pharmacology the RIGHT way. For real, this is one of the trickiest nursing school topics there is. There are so many medications to learn, it’s insane.
But I have a HUGE hack for you that will save you a gazillion hours studying medications, and that is to focus on the mechanism of action of the drug class.
Okay, I know that’s a lot of big words right there, so here’s what this looks like:
A drug class is a group of drugs that act similarly in the body. So each medication in a drug class has a similar mechanism of action, which means it acts the same way when you take it.
So for example, Furosemide and Bumetanide are both diuretic medications that fall under the drug class of loop diuretics.
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And when you look in the drug guide, their mechanism of action literally says the same thing, “Inhibits the reabsorption of sodium and chloride from the loop of Henle and distal renal tubule.” Meaning, it causes a lot of urination and diuresis.
So here’s the BEAUTY in this: Since all the medications that fall under the drug class of “loop diuretics” have the same mechanism of action, all you need to do is remember the mechanism of action for the drug CLASS, NOT for the individual medications.
So if you have a drug class with 10 medications in it, don’t waste your time learning what each of them do. All you need to do is look up what the mechanism of action is for the drug class that all those meds belong to, and you’ll automatically know what each individual drug does, because it will be similar to the drug class. It’s that just AMAZING?
And here’s a little BONUS tip for you: inside your David Drug Guide, which I TOTALLY recommend if you don’t have it yet, you’ll see this red tabbed section here, those are all of the drug classifications. So it’s got this red strip here and it says classifications. And under each of these drug classifications, you’re looking for where it says “General Action and Information.” And that’s where it’s going to tell you the mechanism of action for that drug class. It makes it totally easy for you!
I talk more about studying pharmacology in this video here, so be sure to check that video out if you want.
And if you’re a NursingSOS Member, make sure to go through the How To Study Pharmacology Course, where I walk you through how to do this step-by-step.
Now, my next tip is absolutely game changing, but it’s one of the hardest things to get nursing students to do. And that is to STOP reading every single word in the book.
Now look, I know you want to know everything about everything. But here’s the reality: there are not enough hours in the day for you to read every word of every chapter that’s assigned to you, and STILL study all that information and actually learn it. So you will have to pick and choose what sections of the book you’ll read if you want to come out of nursing school with at least a sliver of sanity.
So here’s what I recommend: focus on studying the sections of the book that your professors talk about in CLASS. This is the information that they think is the most important for you to know, and is THEREFORE most likely to show up on your exams.
In my opinion, this isn’t optional in nursing school. I honestly don’t know ANYONE who reads everything in their textbooks. There just simply isn’t enough time. And it’s not even an efficient way to study. So focus on studying and reading about the topics you learned in class.
Now of course, when you show up to your exams, there WILL be random questions that your professors pulled out of the footnote on page 12 thousand 948, but those questions will be few. So don’t freak out when you see one. Just answer the best you can and move onto the next question.
What’s the alternative? The alternative is to read every word on every page, but not have enough time to study it and actually LEARN it. Now THAT will make you fail your exam, when you don’t actually learn anything.
So seriously friend, trust me, and be efficient with your study time.
I talk a lot about my study process and how I was so successful at taking exams here in this video. So definitely check that one out after watching this video. And I also have a free study checklist for you that walks you through how to study in nursing school step-by-step (the EASY way!), so don’t miss it. I’ll put the link in the description for you to download it.
Now my next tip is one that has come up again and again the past few weeks with our NursingSOS Members and I know you struggle with it to. But before we talk about it, I want to give a shout out to Tamara for our YouTube comment of the week. Tamara said: Thank you again and again! It is so funny that the video you released today is the EXACT same subject we are doing in school 🙂 We have been learning the Nursing Process, writing care plans, and learning critical thinking. How’d you do that??? LOL 🙂 You are so helpful and I really love the way you “teach”.
Thank you so much for your support Tamara, I really appreciate your kind words and I’m so glad you’re here and you’ve found our videos helpful!
So let’s talk about this next tip. I really wanted to talk about this because it’s come up so many times the past few weeks, and I’ve done a lot of coaching with our NursingSOS Members on this because it’s a HUGE problem.
I’ve been hearing a TON from our students that they feel like they’re going to fail an exam, and it gives them crippling anxiety, to the point where they can’t focus or study.
And here’s what this comes down to: self-sabotage. You’re sabbotaging your 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 take any action to study, and then the result is that you don’t do well on your test. It’s a vicious cycle.
So here’s my BIGGEST advice for this: step 1 is you have to recognize when it’s happening, which isn’t as easy as it sounds. You have to catch those thoughts in your mind that say, I can’t do it, It’s too hard, I’m not good enough, It’ll take too long, I know I won’t get an A, I’ll probably get a C…all of those spinning negative thoughts that your brain gives you every day. You need to recognize that they are happening.
And then step 2 is to say, oh no no no, not today BRAIN, and give yourself a new, intentional thought. So for me in nursing school, my intentional thought was “I am enough.” I would literally whisper this to myself as I took my exams: I am enough.
This was my little reminder that, yes, I could do it. And I was good enough to pass nursing school and I was good enough to be a nurse. I can’t even tell you how much peace this simple practice gave me. It truly was life-giving.
So when you find that your brain is spinning out with all of these anxious, fearful, and negative thoughts, just take a step back and recognize that those are just thoughts, it doesn’t make them true, and then insert your own intentional thought. And think it over and over again, day after day.
You have to STOP shaming yourself and spinning with anxiety. Because what happens when your brain is reveling in all of those thoughts, you are NOT going to have a very efficient study session. You’re going to be too focused on your fear and anxiety to actually study. So that’s why we have to solve the underlying problem FIRST, and then we can get back to studying efficiently.
In the next video in this series I’m going to walk you through how to study med-surg the EASY way. Seriously, you are making it wayyyy harder on yourself than you need to. I’m going to give you my best tips and hacks for learning med-surg FAST. So be sure to check that video out.
Now click on one of these videos right over here to keep rocking nursing school and go become the nurse that God created only You to be. And I’ll see you in the next video.
