26. *NEW SERIES*: Nursing School Tips from the Experts (New Students Series) – Expert Tip #1: Nicole Whitworth, Founder of Your Nursing Tutor

Are you looking for nursing school tips to start classes strong? Want to know all the “shortcuts” to help with time management, getting your reading done, and maybe even <gasp> make nursing school easier?

In this blog post and (podcast episode), I’m going to share one of my BEST tips to save time, avoid overwhelm, and maximize your chances of success in nursing school…

Listen Now!

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Links from Episode 26:

LIVE Tutoring Membership: www.YourNursingTutor.com/VIP

Next Episode: EXPERT TIP #2: How to be a better patient advocate in nursing school.

Transcript for Episode 26

My name is Nicole Whitworth, BSN RN, and I’m a professional nursing tutor with over 12+ years experience helping nursing students learn how to study in a way that teaches you to think like a nurse WHILE you’re still in nursing school, so that you can spend less time studying, get better grades, and feel confident when you take NCLEX and start your first nursing job.

And in this episode, I’m going to tell you the BIGGEST shortcut YOU can take to save time, save money, AND save you from failure in nursing school.

Before I share my tip, I need to tell you that today’s episode of the Navigating Nursing School Podcast with Your Nursing Tutor is only the FIRST in a series of expert tips that I’ll be sharing with you over the next few weeks. I have over 2 dozen expert guests lined up who have all graciously volunteered to share their BEST tips for new nursing students.

So you’ve probably heard that “nurses eat their young”, and while there IS a lot of truth to that, I want you to know that there are actually a LOT of nurses who won’t “eat” you, and are actively trying to change the nursing culture to be more positive and supportive. And I think you are going to definitely hear that as you listen to the upcoming episodes this month. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you get notified as each new tip is available.

Now on to MY best tip to kick-off this series! Here it is…limit the resources that you use to only 3 or 4 trusted resources…1 should be your textbook, 1 should be a good NCLEX Review Book, and ONE of those trusted resources should always be a mentor. Let me explain why.

As a professional nursing tutor, I obviously work with a LOT of students and I’m going to tell you something that you’ve probably already experienced…nursing school creates a TON of anxiety.

There’s SOOO many unknowns, new vocabulary, new responsibilities, an overwhelming amount of content to learn, and the Stakes. Feel. High. Most of my VIP Tutoring members are non-traditional students, and so on top of the typical nursing school pressures they also usually have kids to feed, a job to work, bills to pay, and a significant other to spend time with once in a while. And even though I always say that you’re NEVER too old for nursing school, the truth is…if you’re going back to school after having lived some life…it’s still a BIG change, and it’s gonna feel weird!!

So the obvious move is to take action by researching and asking questions and finding YouTube videos and flashcards and NCLEX Review books and Facebook Groups and study guides and “how tos” and even more NCLEX Review books…literally anything you can track down that promises to prepare you for nursing school.

But the problem with all that is that it makes you realize exactly how much you don’t know as a student nurse…instead of making you feel less anxious, you start to feel even more anxious. Which continues the cycle.

So take it from me: if you let yourself do unlimited research and unlimited amounts of studying, you WILL get overwhelmed, you WILL get burnt out, and you WILL struggle and possibly even fail. That’s why it’s so important to avoid this, put your blinders on, and limit your resources to 3-4 that you absolutely trust.

Now, I know what you’re thinking…you’re thinking that this will make you feel MORE anxious because you’ll constantly be afraid that you’re missing out, or that you chose the wrong resource, or that there’s still a better resource out there somewhere.

But that’s why I say that at least ONE of your trusted resources should ALWAYS be a mentor. There are SOOO many benefits of a good mentor, but ONE benefit is that THEY can curate resources FOR you when you need them. That way, you won’t get sucked down the endless black hole of constantly seeking out something new. Instead, you simply go to your mentor, tell them what you need help with, and let your mentor filter ALL the resources for you by only recommending the best options for your particular situation. It saves you time, saves you mental energy, and even saves you some money (…because let’s be honest…I know exactly how many NCLEX Review books are sittin’ in your Amazon shopping cart right now…just sayin’…)

A second benefit to working with an experienced nursing school mentor is that sometimes you don’t even know the right questions to be ASKING, which makes sense, because you’ve never been in nursing school before! I see this all the time with students who come to me asking for tutoring…they THINK that their problem is that there’s too much to read and learn, and they’re having trouble memorizing it all.

But what they DON’T realize is that nursing school is really good at telling you WHAT you should know…but rather than testing you on what you should know, they turn around and test you on HOW to think about it, instead.

And if you don’t have a trusted mentor to offer wise advice, then of course you’re going to keep trying to do whatever your nursing school tells you to do…even if it’s BAD advice like “study harder” or “do more practice NCLEX questions”. And without a mentor, nobody will bother to tell you that these are just time wasting strategies that are literally never going to help you succeed unless you also change the way that you study for nursing school.

Which is ultimately why a good mentor is worth their weight in chocolate. Because if you’re studying in a strategic way, then your textbooks along with ONE good NCLEX Review book should be enough…IF you have a good mentor to guide you along the way.

Now as I mentioned earlier, today’s tip from me is only the first in a series of tips for new nursing students…in fact, next week Nurse Janine Kelbach of The Savvy Scribe will be joining me to offer her advice on how to best advocate for your patients while you’re still a student nurse, AND she will be sharing the secret that helped her succeed even with the additional challenge of having a baby while she was still in nursing school.

So if you’d like to hear her tip along with other essential advice from experienced nurses and nursing students who have been in your shoes (and lived to tell the tale), then make sure to subscribe to this podcast to be notified when the next episode in this series goes live.

In this series, you’re going to learn things like how to feel less scared and more confident as a nursing student, tricks for maximizing your “hands-free” study time while on-the-go, effective ways to deal with passive aggressive bullying from other nurses, and even things you should be doing now to prepare to land your dream job after graduation. So make sure you subscribe to the podcast so you won’t miss a thing.

And while you’re subscribing, if you liked today’s tip and are looking forward to the upcoming tips as well, please leave a rating and review on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to let me know! A 5-Star review and 1-2 sentences of your honest opinion goes a looong way towards helping other nursing students find these tips, AS WELL AS motivating me to create even more useful resources like this for you in the future.

One last thing…I know that good, trustworthy mentorship can be hard to find sometimes. So if you’d like to get some mentorship and support from ME as you go through nursing school, then the Your Nursing Tutor VIP Tutoring Membership is an affordable way to do that. With the VIP Tutoring Membership, you get the best resources for nursing school curated by ME, as well as live tutoring sessions and a private Facebook group so that you always have a trusted source for help and support. Simply go to www.YourNursingTutor.com/vip for more information.

Until next time, good luck on your nursing journey!

Nicole Whitworth

Nicole is a Professional Nursing Tutor with over 15 years experience, and the founder of Your Nursing Tutor. She has a BSN, and an MA in Clinical Psychology. Nicole specializes in providing easy-to-follow, proven study methods (like the Silver Bullet Study System) that transform frustrated nursing students into calm, confident nurses! When she’s not helping students through her Live Tutoring Membership, Nicole loves spending time with her husband, homeschooling their 6 kids, and staring at sunflowers.