nursing school prerequisites: my personal rankings of and study tips for each
What better way is there to mourn celebrate the end of sophomore year besides reflecting on what I loved (and maybe didn't love so much) about the courses I've taken thus far?
Note: prerequisites tend to differ slightly from program to program—these are the ones I took & my recommendations for studying for each <3
As I may have mentioned in a previous post, I'm in a 4-year traditional BSN program. Our first two years are for completing prerequisites, and we take our actual nursing courses in junior and senior year. Since I'm officially done with all the prerequisites, I thought I'd look back on them and see where I could give advice to prospective nursing students :)
So, here we are! These are my rankings based on enjoyment of the content and class structure, not how I felt about each professor:
Developmental Psychology
difficulty: 3/5 | taken: spring of sophomore year
I'm already a huge fan of anything related to psychology, so I knew even before taking this class that it'd be in my top three. The reason it's number one is because we learned so many valuable nursing applications that I started to feel like a nursing student. Our exams comprised of NCLEX-style questions, which forced us to deeply understand the content. Content-wise, the class covered development across the lifespan and specific interventions done at each stage; in my opinion, there wasn't a single boring lecture.
To study for a class like Developmental Psychology—which, from my understanding, isn't a common nursing school prerequisite—your best bet is studying for understanding. We were given a study guide for each exam, so I'd make questions based on each term and answer them with enough detail to ensure I understood everything. I'd also do active recall by having the term list in front of me and writing down everything I could remember, then filling in any information gaps with the answers I wrote out to the questions I made. Finally, practice problems were a game-changer; I'd look up, "pediatrics NCLEX questions" or something similar (based on the content I wanted to review) and find flashcard decks and websites online with questions that looked like they could be pulled straight from the NCLEX. My go-to source for these was Nurse Sarah at RegisteredNurseRN <3
Microbiology
difficulty: 3.5/5 | taken: fall of sophomore year
Potentially unpopular opinion incoming—I LOVED microbiology. Learning about bacteria in detail, disease processes, and specific diseases caused by viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoa was incredibly enjoyable; I truly enjoyed studying for this class. Microbiology is very content-heavy, which can make exams challenging, but if you're a bit of a biology nerd like me, I think it'll be right up your alley.
To study for Microbiology, I used my Google Docs "flashcards" method (but flashcards in general can be just as effective). I phrased one side as a question that tested for understanding, for example, "How do gram positive and gram negative bacteria differ?" and wrote my answer in an easy-to-understand, bullet point format on the back. Active recall is also great for Microbiology—especially for the specific diseases that you have to learn! My friends and I used the whiteboard method often and we'd study together to fill in each other's knowledge gaps before consulting our notes.
Anatomy and Physiology II
difficulty: 5/5 | taken: spring of freshman year
Another possibly unpopular opinion incoming—I LOVED A&P II. Learning about each body system in detail is such a cool experience; I would honestly love to take this class again (minus the exams). A&P II is significantly harder than A&P I because there are more nitty gritty details and processes that you need to understand, but I personally found the content to be so much more interesting.
To study for A&P II, I recommend flashcards, visuals, and active recall. I hand-wrote all of my A&P I and II flashcards and it really made the content stick more, but I understand how that can be time-consuming. I'd say it's a worthwhile investment, though; come final exam season, you'll be grateful for that hand-eye coordination and its enhancement of content retention. Using visuals also made my studying sessions way more productive—I'm a visual learner, so physically drawing out things like the spinal cord anatomy and which spinal injuries affect which pathways enhanced my understanding. Active recall-wise, use the hell out of the whiteboard method and study in groups (after you've done sufficient studying on your own) so you can teach other people the content!
Sociocultural Dimensions of Health
difficulty: 1/5 | taken: spring of sophomore year
Socio completely changed the way I will look at healthcare in this country (and I can tell you, it's certainly not a positive change). In this class, we had meaningful discussions about factors outside of healthcare itself that affect health outcomes, namely the social determinants of health. We discussed how economic circumstances, environmental circumstances, education access, healthcare access, and sociocultural context all have major impacts on the quality of healthcare one receives, and thus their health outcomes. This course is one that I feel everyone going into healthcare should take—it's eye-opening.
I don't actually have study tips for this class because we never had proper exams! I suppose if we did have assessments, I'd try to incorporate real-world examples into each term or concept to gain a more complete understanding.
Anatomy and Physiology I
difficulty: 4/5 | taken: fall of freshman year
It may be shocking that A&P I is lower than A&P II with the sheer difference in difficulty that exists between the two courses, but enjoyability-wise, I'd definitely say A&P I is the least interesting of the two. You learn about the skeletal system (which is fun, to be honest) and muscular system (less fun.) mainly, along with the integumentary and nervous systems (both of which were pretty interesting). I just felt like A&P I is more rote memorization than A&P II because we didn't need to know that many processes in detail.
To succeed in A&P I, I recommend flashcards (handwritten—see my review of A&P II above for more information), the whiteboard method for more conceptual topics, and online practice games to learn the anatomical orientation of each bone and muscle. The practice games are always fun, and I still play them sometimes to test if I can remember what I learned.
Chemistry
difficulty: 3/5 | taken: spring of sophomore year
I was terrible at chemistry in high school—that class genuinely made me miserable. I found college chemistry to be much better (and enjoyed the introductions we got to nuclear and organic chemistry), but content-wise, the class still could be challenging. My professor's exams were fair in difficulty, but only because I did textbook practice and looked at exams from previous semesters for more practice problems. Essentially, I over-studied, but it worked out. I mainly give Chemistry a three for difficulty because it was a lot of self-teaching using the textbook; had the textbook been worse, I would likely not have done as well, but I found our textbook straightforward and easy to understand and take notes from.
To study for Chemistry, do ample practice problems! Things like dosage calculations, dimensional analysis, balancing equations, drawing and naming organic compounds, etc. only become easier with practice. I did a total of around eighty to ninety practice problems prior to each exam, but I'd spread out my studying so I wouldn't do more than twenty in one day. Not all professors are as kind as mine and post old exams, but if your professor does do so, it's a great practice resource (and you can use it as a baseline at the beginning of your studying so you know what topics you need to focus on!). I also would make a list of the concepts to be covered on each exam (at least one to two weeks before the exam itself) and mark it up based on priority so I knew what to focus my practice sessions on each day leading up to the test.
Statistics I
difficulty: 3.5/5 | taken: fall of sophomore year
Let me preface this by saying I am terrible at math, and Statistics I was the first math class I took in college (after a year of not having any math classes). I started off rough because I hated probability, but by the time we got to confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, I was doing better. We were allowed cheat sheets for the exams, which definitely helped; I wouldn't have passed otherwise. Overall, I find that statistics (as a math) is better than calculus. But if I had it my way, I wouldn't be taking any math classes, period.
To study for Statistics, you need to practice, practice, practice! That is the only way you'll understand how to apply the formulas you learn to actual problems. Again, we were allowed cheat sheets for exams, so I wrote down formulas and an example problem for each formula, that way I understood how to apply it. When doing practice problems before the exam, I only used my cheat sheet (that I would start working on at least ~2 weeks in advance) rather than peeking at my notes, so if I felt that something was missing, I could write it in. I also color-coded my cheat sheet by topic so I could easily find the information and formulas I needed for a problem.
Nutrition
difficulty: 2/5 | taken: fall of sophomore year
I would've enjoyed Nutrition more had it been an in-person class, to be honest. I took it asynchronously and the recorded lectures felt repetitive and full of fluff, and we took a final exam without having learned half the content we were tested on. Content-wise, I think Nutrition is really interesting and the class did have an impact on my eating habits, I just didn't like the structure of our class. The projects were fun, though.
I fear I have no study tips for Nutrition... we didn't have any tests or quizzes except for the final, and I was so done by the time final exam season came around that I just reread the notes I took from the lecture videos. It didn't help, to keep it brief. Looking back on it now, if I could have done something differently that semester, I would probably have read the textbook and studied for understanding rather than just passively reading over my notes.
