Prenursing Student

Anatomy and Physiology final grades were posted last night. I am so happy to report that I earned an A!

Looking back, I don’t know how I made it through this last semester. I remember not even going to class for the first day of each class because I felt so discouraged.

I had to work to keep telling myself not to listen to the inner voice telling me my efforts were futile.

Has that ever happened to you? Have you ever faced a circumstance in which you felt that the achievement of your goals was impossible?

Have you ever heard a voice telling you repeatedly that you shouldn’t even try because it won’t work? That is how I felt many times in the last semester.

If you haven’t read every single post on this prenursing blog, you might not know that my 8 year marriage fell apart during the last year.

At many times, I felt like my dream of becoming a nurse was impossible, but my faith in God made me keep going. I truly believed that God had allowed me to get this far and that I would be sinning against God by giving up.

I had to remind myself of where I started this journey to tale prereqs to apply to nursing school. I vividly recall trying to add the science prerequisite, general chemistry, which is a prereq for A&P. I remember that there were 20 on the waiting list and that I was #20 after that, so I was technically number #40 on the waiting list.

I remember reading one prenursing students advice to another prenursing student (on AllNurses.com) on trying to add classes. She told her: ‘Stay until the teacher kicks you out.’ I remember that I wasn’t duper emotionally invested in becoming a nurse at that point. I remember making the decision to give the circumstance to God. I decided that he would either allow me to get in or he wouldn’t. I decided to do my part, buy the book anyways and commit to studying.

I learned a lot that semester. My professor could hardly believe it when I reminded him on the last day of class that I was one of the “adds” and that now I was one of the few remaining. I earned a B in that class (which is not included in the nursing GPA) and an A in English, which does count in my nursing GPA.

I learned how much I love to study, I learned to focus on school when I was in school and not to think about my problems. (at the time, I was in and out of court with my teenagers estranged biological dad and was in between IVF cycles.

I also learned how disappointing it is to earns B grade when you know, with greater consistency, an A was possible.
I had to constantly remind myself of this over the last semester. I am so happy to report that I earned all A’s in my 11 units while working part time and raising 3 kids with minimal help.

To God be the glory!

Tips for Science Summer School Success

1. Start reading before the term begins.
Buy the expensive book ahead if time. Assume at least a double pace and read at least 2 weeks ahead.

2. Choose professors with positive rankings on rate my professor and/or from other students. I learned this the hard way 2 summers ago. The ironic thong is, a college counselor just gave me *the exact same advice* a few days ago. He said to research the professor befoe you enroll and if you can’t find one with good reviews, do not risk setting yourself back and lowering your gps by taking summer school sciences,

3. Allow a proportional amount of study time for the condensed time to study relative to the number of units you are taking.

4. Accept the fact that you will see your family, children, less. Make arrangements. Don’t wing it. Make a plan and tell guilt to go away.
5. Keep a laser focus. Don’t let other things in your life distract you.

Students who are successful as pre-nursing students break down the information in complex classes, such as Anatomy & Physiology,  into bite-sized pieces.

This is a key to success that has taken me a few semesters to learn and adapt to!

My first A&P teacher would tell our class: “Know the whole 200 pages by the end of the week.” We’d ask, “What parts of the chapters do we need to know?” She’d answer, “All of them.” Because I didn’t know how to study (I was a simple A/B student up to that point)

Read my article titled What I Learned From Failing My  Science Prerequisite Class to learn about the strategies I learned to prevent this misfortune from Ever. Occurring. Again.

That semester was a haze of random Anatomy & Physiology information that never really made sense –which is why I’m repeating the class, now. I didn’t know how to study for difficult nursing prereqs without teacher support in assimilating the material. I have since learned that it is easier to assimilate or learn new material when it is first divided into miniature sections that make sense to you.

My current Anatomy and Physiology teacher breaks down the material into small pieces for us. He says, “Know all 200 terms for the lab practical.” But, next he says, “This week, you only need to know the first part of the list, and next week, you’ll need the next section.” Even if your teacher doesn’t break up your material for you, break it up yourself.

Don’t try to teach yourself organelles, chemistry and tissue histology at the same time! Just focus on the organelles during one study session. The next time you study, whether it’s later that day or the next day, teach yourself the tissues. If you need to, break up the tissues into 2 different sections that make sense to you.

Once you have divided the Anatomy & Physiology work into bite sized pieces, follow the steps below.

1. Look at the first term or concept. Ask yourself, do I know where this is or what this is? (if your teacher asks you to know structure and function of everything and doesn’t divide the information you need to learn between lab and lecture, also ask yourself to describe the function.

2. If you don’t know where or what the concept it is, open up your book and find out where it is.

3. Visualize the part or touch the part on your body (or a skeleton) while saying it. Prenursing students are allowed to do this stuff, even in public. Trust me.

4. Go down to the next term. Ask yourself, do I know this? If you don’t, do as described in step 3. If you do already know the term, ask yourself to link that term to something else you know. For example, say to yourself, ‘I know what the atlas is, it sits on top of the axis and allows my head to shake “no” and the dens of the axis articulates with the atlas.” The joy of this method is that no pencil is required. If you don’t have your book, you can still use this method to review the terms you think you already know.

5. Continue reviewing and recalling the location, visual appearance (and function if needed) of each term.

I love this method because I can do it right before an Anatomy & Physiology test or quiz and it sticks the material firmly into my mind.

The only bad part is that this study technique works so well, I haven’t been using my usual hard core methods of studying (Click on this link to learn more about my usual pre-nursing student study methods in) BUT, I’m concerned that the material will become more difficult and I want to keep up my good study habits, so I plan to reinforce my quick crams with more traditional studying.

However, this cramming method has helped me to take 11 units, raise 3 kids and work, while maintaining an A in the first 6 weeks of Anatomy & Physiology. 1 practical, 1 exam and 5 quizzes thus far. I’m also using it to earn A’s in my Medical Terminology nursing prerequisite class, as outlined here.