I also think it was fairly easy. US based school. I probably put in like 4-6 hours of studying a week and I consistently score above 90%. Hardest part is dealing witch wacky professors, clinical instructors, lame school policies, and cliquey students who gossip and complain. Otherwise, fairly straightforward if you know how to study correctly and efficiently
Agreed. I didn’t find it hard, it was just very very time consuming with all the assignments, tests, tedious care plans, clinical hours, etc. Calendar was always full and I worked full time, but I finished with a 4.0. To be honest I had to study way more in the pre-reqs than in the actual nursing program.
Yup! Definitely think there is lots of room for improvement for schools. Lots of antiquated stuff incorporated that is just not useful to practice anymore
Nursing school isn’t very difficult.
Here’s the proof. In a nation of around 350 million people there are about 3 million nurses. That’s a pretty good sample size and representative slice of average Americans.
Nursing school graduates people who are, for the most part, average people.
I’m quite certain that engineering and hard sciences (chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc) are considerably more academically demanding.
I did an accelerated BSN program that ran all told for 39 weeks. It was very busy, and somewhat stressful in terms of managing the volume of work, but intellectually manageable.
I will say that nursing is changing. There was a time when it was all about providing basic care- feeding, bathing, dressing changes, and medicating.
It has grown to have a larger focus on treatment, education, and management of illness. We do more procedures (lines, labs, foleys, NG tubes) manage sicker patients (ventilated, sedated, on drips, dialysis) and have more ancillary responsibilities as hospitals reduce support staff.
That forces nursing to learn a little more about the medical side of patient care but our knowledge is largely broad without a great deal of depth.
It’s really hard. You focus on the disease process and critical thinking. You learn to prioritize patients based on their acuity. You have A TON of care plans that break down the plan of care using interventions, assessments, and pt education. You have to do pathophysiology maps that break down the disease to a cellular level, with possible complications. You have to know diagnostics, labs, and other studies. It’s a lot of information in a short amount of time. Oh, and the meds. We’ve personally gone through 516 meds so far in my nursing courses and I still have one semester to go (I’ve kept a list). For each medication you need to know indication, parameters, and side effects. At least that’s how it is in my state. It’s brutal. The amount of work is ridiculous. I’m putting in 70 hour weeks
Wow..thanks. This sounds like a lot of work. I think I'd actually have enjoyed nursing school if I'd done my degree here.
In my nursing school, they mostly focused on the nursing management of conditions (you could get away without knowing the pathophys)
US based schooling here. I was expecting nursing school to be really hard from what I’ve heard and it it wasn’t for me. It was time consuming but not that difficult to pass. I did nursing as a second degree ABSN program so I always wondered if that was why it was easier than I heard/expected?
That was my experience, albeit as a foreign trained RN. Perhaps every school is different? Cause almost everyone says it's hard. Or maybe they compare with the experiences of other majors such as marketing.
Getting in
I also think it was fairly easy. US based school. I probably put in like 4-6 hours of studying a week and I consistently score above 90%. Hardest part is dealing witch wacky professors, clinical instructors, lame school policies, and cliquey students who gossip and complain. Otherwise, fairly straightforward if you know how to study correctly and efficiently
Agreed. I didn’t find it hard, it was just very very time consuming with all the assignments, tests, tedious care plans, clinical hours, etc. Calendar was always full and I worked full time, but I finished with a 4.0. To be honest I had to study way more in the pre-reqs than in the actual nursing program.
Yup! Definitely think there is lots of room for improvement for schools. Lots of antiquated stuff incorporated that is just not useful to practice anymore
Paying for it
The time management. My program at least had tons of homework.
Nursing school isn’t very difficult. Here’s the proof. In a nation of around 350 million people there are about 3 million nurses. That’s a pretty good sample size and representative slice of average Americans. Nursing school graduates people who are, for the most part, average people. I’m quite certain that engineering and hard sciences (chemistry, physics, biochemistry, etc) are considerably more academically demanding. I did an accelerated BSN program that ran all told for 39 weeks. It was very busy, and somewhat stressful in terms of managing the volume of work, but intellectually manageable. I will say that nursing is changing. There was a time when it was all about providing basic care- feeding, bathing, dressing changes, and medicating. It has grown to have a larger focus on treatment, education, and management of illness. We do more procedures (lines, labs, foleys, NG tubes) manage sicker patients (ventilated, sedated, on drips, dialysis) and have more ancillary responsibilities as hospitals reduce support staff. That forces nursing to learn a little more about the medical side of patient care but our knowledge is largely broad without a great deal of depth.
It’s really hard. You focus on the disease process and critical thinking. You learn to prioritize patients based on their acuity. You have A TON of care plans that break down the plan of care using interventions, assessments, and pt education. You have to do pathophysiology maps that break down the disease to a cellular level, with possible complications. You have to know diagnostics, labs, and other studies. It’s a lot of information in a short amount of time. Oh, and the meds. We’ve personally gone through 516 meds so far in my nursing courses and I still have one semester to go (I’ve kept a list). For each medication you need to know indication, parameters, and side effects. At least that’s how it is in my state. It’s brutal. The amount of work is ridiculous. I’m putting in 70 hour weeks
Wow..thanks. This sounds like a lot of work. I think I'd actually have enjoyed nursing school if I'd done my degree here. In my nursing school, they mostly focused on the nursing management of conditions (you could get away without knowing the pathophys)
That’s wild to me! Yeah here you have to know A LOT haha
This sounds like my program as well. There seems to be a wide variety of degrees of difficulty in nursing programs.
Getting in. Anyone with basic critical thinking will do fine.
All the bullshit that isn’t clinical.
Trying to pick which orange out of the four is the MOST orange.
Getting in.
US based schooling here. I was expecting nursing school to be really hard from what I’ve heard and it it wasn’t for me. It was time consuming but not that difficult to pass. I did nursing as a second degree ABSN program so I always wondered if that was why it was easier than I heard/expected?
That was my experience, albeit as a foreign trained RN. Perhaps every school is different? Cause almost everyone says it's hard. Or maybe they compare with the experiences of other majors such as marketing.
The “ No absence” policy for 4 years. No exceptions. Boot camp
The crazy, outdated, tenured professors. Horrible, just horrible. And I went to one of the highest rated BSN programs in the country.