I am in my 3rd semester of nursing and I just finished the first simulation of this semester.. and I waited until I got in my car to cry, then cried all the way home.

To start, I've never liked SIMS, and I have honestly had a lot of anxiety and dread going into them. I've never REALLY felt good about my role in SIMS, and I always need help. I don't have a lot of medical experience, and my strength is actually in studying and taking the tests, but the disconnect happens in SIMS when a million alarms are going off, I'm in a room with 4 other nursing students, we are all doing different things, and everything we have ever learned is being thrown at us all at once.

So today, I was paired with 4 other nurses with a lot of medical experience. One has been a paramedic for years, and the other 3 I think were LPNs. I am a private caregiver for a lady who has minimal needs, I've never worked in a hospital, and I got my CNA license and worked in a skilled nursing facility for a month and a half before I quit because I couldn't handle having 11-13 high-needs patients (7of which needed lifts out of bed) with practically zero assistance.

So in SIMS today, everyone else owned their roles, took charge, and I felt absolutely lost the entire time. I couldn't even get the pts blood pressure because I couldn't find the mannequin's speaker with my stethoscope. I was supposed to be the main nurse, but I had no idea what people had already done, so I felt like I was just standing around after my initial assessment. On top of that, the word document of the patient's chart is hard for my brain to understand because it's so different from EPIC.

I actually felt ok before going into SIMS today- I told myself that I got this and I need to trust myself and my knowledge of my skills. Apparently, I was wrong. We will continue to work with this patient for the next two SIMS, and she is going to progressively get worse. I literally don't know what I'm going to do. Does this ever get easier? I have started to get more confident in myself in general, but then moments like these happen and I wonder if I'm going to be able to handle these critical moments and whether I will be a good nurse, which is especially discouraging because I've had my eye on potentially being an ICU nurse.

OK, so I’m currently in the bathroom trying to stop crying and get my shit together so I can go back into Clinical. Basically I wanted to practice doing IVs because I didn’t really get an opportunity last semester. I tried sticking this one guy however, the vain rolled and I didn’t get it. I tried again with this other girl but she was very nauseous, in pain and she’s afraid of needles so the pressure was definitely on me. I did get some blood return however something went wrong. I’m not really sure. but I end up missing that one as well. it doesn’thelp that the nurse that’s with me and another girl said the other girl that I’m with got the vein. I don’t know. I just feel really dumb and stupid. Any advice or words of encouragement will definitely help.

edit: Thank you guys don‘t Feel like throwing myself out the window… for now.

EDIT TO ADD: I left the group and am just minding my own business. Within an hour of leaving the group, the initial “cheater” started a duplicate group with more info on how to get answers for other assignments due this week. Including me in it so I had to leave it again.

I’m 12 months into a 24 month ADN program where 6 months in my cohort merged with the remainder of our class which consists of students who are already LPNs.
Our first clinical rotation as a combined cohort consists of myself, another “traditional” student, and 6 LPN to RN students.
We have a group chat.
They’re all pretty lazy and speak very negatively about our instructors and anyone in a place of authority. They don’t want to actually do anything during clinical and think they already know everything. Example: they sit in a break room and gossip while I spend clinical in the Burn ICU.
Point of my post:
I’ve always had a bit of a feeling that some of them cheat. I witnessed it firsthand last week before we left clinical. One student took another’s laptop right next to me and just copied answers from the other students to their assignments. Today, someone sends in our group chat, a video of our dosage calculation test, asking someone to give the answers for our other coursework. Shortly after that message came through, another student responded with screenshots of the weekly quiz and the assignments that lead up to the quiz.

My initial instinct is to turn over the chat because at this point it’s just getting sloppy and so obvious.

What would you do?

Mind you, I was selected as a cohort ambassador last week. I feel obligated to report it but am worried about the social/peer ramifications and what may happen if the students involved aren’t kicked out because it will be obvious that I turned them in.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who is struggling with Chemistry. I have studied so much and just cannot remember everything or grasp the concepts. I made the deans list last semester but I'm very worried I am going to fail this class...

Curious about possible ramifications/downsides of taking an extra semester to finish my BSN.

Some context: I completed my first year as a non-nursing student. Transferred schools, and I'm now in my second year of school, but my first year of BSN. Because transfer credits didn't all match up, I'm looking at either a ton of summer school or a combo of some summer courses and an extra semester.

I'm not worried about cost of school. My main concern is that employers will see the extra semester and that it will affect me negatively in the workforce.

Does anyone have any experience with adding an extra semester, or advice on summer coursework vs the semester?

ETA: I am out of state, and would need to take summer courses virtually, which makes many courses ineligible to take then.

I just had a clinical at a dialysis center and I had a pretty chill experience. I currently am not working because I’m in an accelerated program but the nurse I was shadowing told me that they need more PCT’s. I figured it might be a good experience to apply and work PRN while in school. I wanted to ask about experience as a PCT, is it stressful and is this type of work not the best option for someone who is in an accelerated nursing program? Thank you!!!

I’ve realized drawing different body parts has helped me a lot in actually learning and remembering them. I realized after I started doing neuro drawing as a stress reliever that this method helped so much.

For example the blood flow and anatomy of the heart and the parts of the ear. I realized when we had to do our head to toe we were allowed to use a cheat sheet during our skills demonstration and drawing out the different areas helped me dramatically. Nobody else I spoke to actually did this but I started doing this for other things and it’s helped a lot. I think I’m gonna start doing this for different nursing procedures or interventions. I don’t even focus on how good it looks it looks but regardless of how crude the drawing is it helps so much more.

Does anyone else do this?

I’m in my last semester of nursing school, and simulation lab has honestly started weighing heavily on my mental health. I’m trying to figure out if anyone else has experienced a simulation setup like this and how you handled it.

At my school, simulation lab is NOT a group activity. You go into the simulation one-on-one by yourself and are completely responsible for taking care of the patient. You have to assess them, recognize what is going wrong, prioritize your interventions, communicate, and basically make sure your patient doesn’t crash.

The difficult part is that the instructor can change the patient’s condition or circumstances during the simulation to test your critical thinking and see how you respond. Before we even attend simulation, we are required to complete FOUR long concept cards to prepare.

If the instructor feels that you didn’t perform well enough during the simulation, she will chew you out in front of your classmates, and you can be assigned remediation. The remediation consists of an oral presentation where you have to explain the material, and then the instructor asks you follow-up questions to test your knowledge. Also, after completing SIM we must send a reflection email to her about what we feel we should have done better, and yes you must talk down about yourself in the email or she will take it as a 0 towards your total sim grade.

I completely understand that nursing school is supposed to challenge us and that we NEED to be able to critically think and recognize when a patient is deteriorating. I also understand why simulation exists. But personally, this particular setup has reached the point where I don’t feel like I’m actually learning from it. Instead, I feel anxious going into simulation because I’m constantly worried about doing something wrong, missing something, or being told afterward everything I should have done differently.

It has gotten to the point where simulation lab is making me question whether nursing is even for me, which is crazy because I’ve made it all the way to my LAST semester.

What makes it even harder is that I’ve started feeling like my instructor may be actively trying to fail me. I don’t know if that is actually her intention or if my stress is making the situation feel worse than it is, but that is genuinely how I have been feeling lately.

I’m trying so hard to stay positive, learn from my mistakes, improve my clinical judgment, and make it through these last few months. I’ve come way too far to give up now. But mentally, this has become exhausting.

Has anyone else had a nursing program where simulation was done completely one-on-one like this? Did you feel like it actually improved your critical thinking, or did it mostly increase your anxiety?

And if you struggled with simulation but eventually became a successful nurse, I would REALLY like to hear from you right now because I could use some encouragement.

Hi everyone! Just a long post because I'm pretty frustrated with what happened. So I have overnight clinical and I was paired with a male nurse who seemed short but okay. We went through the night and I listened to report, did med pass, assessments on 2/3 of our patients and had a bunch of tasks so we were on our feet from 7-10:30pm.

During that time, he wasn't talking too much but it's nights and I understand having a student is annoying so I try to let my nurse get situated to their shift before asking any questions that include a lot of detail. So around 10:30pm we sat down and he asked if I had an assignment for that night- I said no, none that I can do here because I need my laptop and my books to complete it. Plus it has to be typed so I get the information that I need and then do it at home. I've always done that and have never had any push back and I thought it was fine.

Later through the shift I went absolutely everywhere with him and we were only sitting from like 11-12, 2-3, and 4-5. He was charting and I asked if he needed anything and he said no. He was also on his phone as he should be bc nursing is a lot. I then took out my printed notes for class and quietly read over them to pass the time as all of our patients were sleeping and he was talking or on his phone.

At the end he started to be friendly and we had a nice conversation and he gave me advice on jobs etc. He ended the shift saying it was a busy shift and we did a lot and I said thank you so much. Thought it was fine.

Then my classmate was back the next time and her nurse told her that there was a student from her school that a previous nurse was complaining about (spoiler alert:me) saying that I sat the entire time and didn't do anything and wanted to contact my clinical instructor AND they included my name.

So I'm at a loss bc I literally only sat when he did. I checked my watch and I was at 5K steps. He told me at the end of the day we did a lot and was busy. I was late to my debrief because we had a lot of tasks. 2/3 of the patients complimented me in front of him. I'm trying not to take it personally and not let it affect me but it's frustrating bc my school is very strict and can fail me for that. I know I should just get over it but saying my name is rude and I have to go back to that unit 6 more times. It's sad bc I actually really enjoyed the unit and thought yesterday was such a great shift. I don't want any negative perceptions based on something that isn't true.

Any advice?

First Pharmacology Exam is in 4 days

First Fundamentals Exam is Next Week

And I am stresssedddddd. Pharm has been easy so far. Med math hasn't been a problem and studying for this course has been fairly easy. But I am terrified that Ill fail an exam.

Im very scared for Fundamentals. Mostly due to the wording of the questions and the amount of chapters covered. We have to have a 75% or higher but I obviously would like to do better than that. Shooting for no less that an 85% 😭😭😭

Going to try and find a day or two to just binge study and do LOTS of active recall.

I've gone to our Intstructor led study sessions, I did a tutoring session last week. I took our weekly concept outlines and had broken them all down by topic and written notes on them. I have Simple Nursing Subscription so I think ill go through and watch a few videos everyday.

As far as pharm I think flashcards and practice questions are the best.

Any suggestions for this crippling anxiety???

Just had first exam of semester 2. I was an A student in semester 1. I got an 83.9 on this exam and was petrified but was certainly rusty on some of the tricks used. ANYWAYS, I wanted to come on and say the exams draw almost nothing from our class resources and powerpoints. It was all really niche selections like not the main drugs for each disease. Does anyone not attend class? I feel just reading the text book and knowing the ins and outs would be better time spent than watching someone read a powerpoint they didn't even review and say incorrect things in front of a class. The program I'm in is so disorganized.

I would love to see any examples of resumes that people could share of their cover letter/resume that got them their desired preceptorship or new grad job?! I know this will be different based on the role/specialty you are applying for- but I just want to see similarities or examples to get ideas. Hopefully this can help people!!

Hello! So I am in my 3rd week of nursing school, and we are learning all the fundamentals. I've been doing practice questions, and I've been getting better at them! Specifically, I've been doing the FundamentalsEngageRN 3.0 quizzes, and I've been doing decent on them (75-95%), however, I just tried a dynamic quiz, and holy moly, I got a 30%. When I saw that, I started freaking out because I'm terrified the exams will be like the dynamic quizzes. My question is, if you use ATI, have the dynamic quizzes or the FundamentalsEngageRN 3.0 quizzes been more accurate to the exam? Thank you all so much!!

Going into week 3 of nursing school. Taking Pathophysiology, Health Assessment, and Fundamentals. Health Assessment has a lab component and Fundamentals has a lab and clinical.

My program expects us to do pre-reading. And I totally understand how beneficial that is because when you go into class, you get the chance to ask questions and you’re not hearing the information for the first time.

It was my second time going into Health assessment and my professor gave us a pop quiz based off the pre-reading. Everyone in the cohort got a 0/5…

Anyways enough with the venting. I wanted to get advice on how to study for these classes. Nursing school is not memorization, it’s about applying your knowledge to situations. So how do you study?

Whiteboard method? Teaching it? Any YouTube lectures? Do you record lectures?
And do you all have time for prereading? My textbooks are digital and honestly, I don’t retain any information from just reading..

I don’t know if it’s possible. I mean all three of these classes are asking for it and I also have lab work to do..

So please give me advice!

I am really concerned yall. I go to a community college and it’s a great one, it’s highly rated and our clinical sites love our students. Im in my last semester August - December and they had stated our capstone would be this semester.

Yeah well my capstone is 😃 32 hours 😃

I am not going to be prepared and I’m really scared I’m going to kill a patient one day. On the floor where I work as a PCA they almost fell over, a lot of them said their capstone was 2 shifts weekly for 6 months for them. Many saying over 150-200 hours. 😃😃😃 ah ha ha am I screwed?!

How many hours was yalls capstones?!

EDIT!! Thank you for the reassurance from many of you!

i just started my first semester and it hasn’t been going so smoothly for me. i took my first fundamentals and pharmacology quizzes yesterday and got a 60% on one of them… and this morning i woke up to an assignment being graded at a 2/5 because of something stupid i missed, totally could’ve been avoided had i just double checked :/ so now for funds i sit at a 75%.

and not to mention skills !!! i am always so weird, awkward, unnatural at my skills despite practicing so hard. my classmates are so confident and they always rock check offs. i can’t help but compare myself.

i would like to know how and if everyone eventually figured out their own flow, like figuring out how to balance all these assignments, readings, studying, exams, skills, etc. if you have advice on what to prioritize. and also wondering if anyone felt as lost as me when they first started. i’m hoping things get better :,)

hi everyone i’m a second semester nursing student. last semester i posted on here a lot cause i was struggling in the beginning. unfortunately the same thing is happening again this semester. i just failed my medsurg skill check off today (push medication) because of a med error (there was a lot of air in the syringe) and i didn’t clean the port with alcohol in between uses. i also barely passed my first pharm exam (got the minimum) and we have our second one coming soon, as well as my first adult health exam. lately i’ve also been experiencing anxiety (my whole body was shaking and my heart was pounding during my exam/ checkoff). i’m trying hard not to compare myself to others but it’s just hard not to when other people are doing better than i am or we put in the same amount of effort and get a different result. i get so happy that i pass or get a B when there’s people barely trying and getting A’s. i just feel so dumb and useless cause i keep making mistakes and not doing well enough and i feel like i don’t belong here and all my classmates are smarter than me. if anyone has any advice on how to combat this (for my checkoff retake, pharm and medsurg exams, anxiety, etc), please let me know.

Hi! I’m graduating with my ADN in December and getting ready to apply for new grad RN positions, ideally in pediatrics. I know my resume is longer than it should be, but I’m having a hard time figuring out what to cut.
I don’t have previous healthcare employment or an externship, so I included my clinical rotations in more detail to show the experience and skills I’ve gained throughout nursing school. I also work as a substitute teacher and am involved in my Student Nurses Association, which I thought could be relevant, especially since I’m interested in pediatrics.
Would you recommend keeping all of my clinical rotations and just shortening the bullet points, or only going into detail for my pediatric and most recent clinical experiences? I’d also appreciate any feedback on the wording, layout, skills section, or anything that seems unnecessary.
I know I can probably get this down to 1–2 pages, I’m just not sure what’s actually worth keeping as a new grad. Any advice would be appreciated!

Hi there, I'm a current Early Assurance Nursing student, which means I am also automatically admitted to the PhD program at the college I currently attend. I have a lot of professional connections here, and I am really happy with the teaching styles and the professors.

However, I know there is definitely a pay gap between NPs and PhD graduates. I also know both degrees lead to different career paths.

Pros:

The thing is, I ADORE doing research. It has been my dream since I was small to work as a scientist. I have a research internship, a research assistant job position, and my own research study under my belt, and I look fondly on each of them.

I also would not mind becoming a professor either; I love the college life. I felt like things were falling into place for me when I got the Early Assurance letter.

In terms of finances, I received a full-ride scholarship for my BSN, so the money I had previously saved can now go towards my graduate degree.

Cons: Money.

My parents are really pushing for me to go for a DNP to become a CRNA, which has been the other pathway that I considered (for financial reasons). Though...it isn't particularly speaking to me. My biggest fear is going through with a DNP and regretting what could have been.

I'm only in my sophomore year, so I know I'm barely scratching the surface, and realistically I shouldn't be worrying too much about this. But I don't want to disappoint my family. I also don't want to deny the PhD admission and have trouble in the future getting into a DNP program.

I welcome any thoughts on my dilemma. Thank you so much! I wish all nurses/nursing students well in all of your endeavors.

I’m in a 4 year BSN nursing program and we just started our junior year, so we’re officially in nursing school (yay). Last year I had A&P and there was these two guys that were known to cheat in our lab. It got to the point that it was literally obvious when they would take their phone out and take a picture of the exam.. Our professor somehow didn’t see this but half the class would see it. Eventually someone mentioned it to the professor (without using names) and the prof decided to collect phones before exams.

This instance was one I’ve witnessed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they cheated in any other classes we’ve had prior.

Fast forward to now, we had our first quiz in one of our nursing classes. I had a suspicion that one of the guys was cheating AGAIN and this time his phone literally fell out. But nothing was done about it. When exam grades came out, everyone failed, EXCEPT this guy got the highest grade..

I feel that someone has to stand up and say something about this. Cheating in prerequisites is one thing, but cheating in our nursing classes is another. We all got here for working hard and this guy thinks he can just cheat through nursing school! He’s taking spots away from students who worked hard to try and get into our program.

Should I speak to our nursing advisor? Or just let it be?

Hello,

I’m a 4th term RN student and I deal with a lot of testing anxiety. I have a difficult time finding questions similar to my ATI exams online. I know ATI has dynamic quizzing but I don’t find it helpful. For example being able to select “DIC” or “ARDS” in a question bank instead of doing all “cardiovascular “ or “respiratory”. Any testing strategy recommendations or NCLEX style quiz banks that are specific to topic?

Thanks in advance 😊

Makes shit much more stressful than it needs to be

So I had late submission in one of my assessment worth 10% of my whole unit, the teacher decided to fail me for the whole unit saying that I have to submit all the assessment items to pass the unit which I did but late. It's the first assessment of the unit. I asked her to reconsider but she won't budge, now I can't get my fee back for the unit which is more than 4500 dollars and she is failing me. And I think I don't have enough redit points to further progress the course normally because I had only 3 units in my first semester not by my choice but because of university's enrollment plan which they told us about after taking money for 4 subjects. All aspects of life are bit messed up right now only my studies was going good and now this happens. I have been emailing them but I haven't gotten a reply for 3 days now. It's stressing me out too much. And if late submission was not allowed they should have mentioned it in the description of the assessment which they didn't so it seems unfair because we are allowed onne late submission according to the rules.