Week 1

My name is Samantha, I graduated in September of 2022 from a private college. I have taken the NCLEX 2 times, and I felt discouraged each time.

Coming into this class is pretty nerve racking because I honestly don’t know what else to do. I sort of feel like this is my last chance. I do realize there is not a number of times you can take the NCLEX but I am not used to failing things, especially multiple times. I did very well in nursing school, and I see all my classmates on social media passing their NCLEX and becoming nurses and honestly it makes me kind of sad that I can’t do that.

I really have no idea what I have been doing wrong because I feel like I know the content but for some reason I just cannot apply it to these questions. The lectures we have been doing in class have been helping because there is some small stuff that in nursing school, I feel like they are brushed over but are also so very important. Something that I am going to work on to try and do better is reading the book more. I haven’t been doing that but want to start because I want to try learning from all different ways including trying to read.

My motivation is my son. My family is the most important thing to me, and I want to better myself and my family. Becoming a nurse would not only better myself because it is always what I wanted to do which is to help people, but it will also better my family because I will be making a better salary to support them. My husband has been my biggest support by even getting a better job so I could focus on whatever I need to pass my test. He is always there to support me no matter what I decide to do.

Week 2

Going into week 3, I am excited to learn more and start getting even better scores on Uworld tests. My scores are improving day by day. I used to consistently be right on the average line and now when I take a test, I’m either right at it or above it. It’s a really good feeling seeing that. I’m reading the rationales but something I want to improve on is really reading/writing the rationales and understanding them even better to try and apply them to other things or questions that I either have got or may get.

I want to also start doing more questions each day. I was going to start doing 75 questions instead of just 50. It’s only 25 more and I feel like it would be helpful.

I think what’s most helpful is the videos and the lectures. They seem to really help me understand things better. Especially if I don’t really understand it if I watch a couple of videos explaining it in different ways, I seem to grasp it a little better. There are still some ways I can get better in Uworld like taking my time and really reading the question and answers before I just jump on one answer. A feature on there that really helps me is the elimination feature where I can cross out answers I know are not right. Because once I cross it out, I try not to think about it anymore.

Week 3

Going into week 4 I am excited. I have cut down a day at work to focus on studying. These past few weeks have been pretty hard for me dedicating all the time and energy in coming to class and studying outside of the class. But I have been doing it and I see it paying off.

I am getting so much better scores lately than I was in week 1. It boosts my confidence seeing me stay above that line when before I was getting lucky if I hit that line. With the test not being that far away it does make me a little anxious.

I am really excited to dive into peds because I feel like that is my weakness right now. I do not feel like in nursing school I had that great of a peds teacher. She pretty much just gave us the answer to all the questions we needed to know to the test to pass. So, because of that I don’t really feel like I actually learned really anything. I think this contributes to peds being my weakness area. I feel like I’m doing way better in fundamentals than I was.

One thing I worry about is the nausea on test day. This pregnancy has definitely taken a toll on me and if I knew that me and my husband would have waited haha.

I am also going to start trying to meet with the others in the class to see if that will also help me. I am usually a better learner on my own. I don’t really make friends that easily because I tend to keep to myself. It’s pretty much how I got through nursing school just studied by myself and sometimes my husband even though he didn’t know anything that I would talk about he would still help quiz me on all my notes. It’s not that I couldn’t reach out to the friends I had in school it’s just that I felt I studied better at my own pace. But I feel like it won’t hurt to try.

Week 4

This week I feel like am still pretty confident in what I have been learning. I do feel like I know so much more than I did. The closer I get to the 24th the more excited I am but also more nervous. I feel like a lot is riding on this time taking it.

I have been watching a lot of simple nursing videos. I like the animations and seeing it the way the videos put it, help me a lot. I did focus on fluid and electrolytes the other day and I feel like it helped a lot. I’ve been trying to do this rather than do extra questions on top of my 50.

I’m not gonna lie I do feel like I’m getting burnt out on questions. It feels like this heavy task that I dread some days. Is there anything you think that would help me with this? Even on these days I usually still do all the questions, but it just seems to me like it’s more exhausting.
One thing I’m excited about is getting to put all this knowledge into the review next week because I feel like going over everything together and applying it will help me so much with all the knowledge I have. And the more I hear things the more it sticks into my brain.

Also, I have been practicing dosage on my own time and I feel like I’m starting to get more confident. The only part of dosage I wasn’t confident in is the ml/hr and I’m starting to understand it more now.

Week 5

This is the last week of class and I’m really excited to never see another nursing question for a while ha-ha. The more questions I do the more confident I feel. I am starting to get scores in the 70’s which makes me feel amazing. I have found that if I do the questions without any distractions, it helps me a lot.

This past week I have done questions and read the book to help me prepare. This upcoming week I plan on listening to some of the mark Klimek lectures. I think now that I have a better understanding of the concepts, I will be able to follow along with his lectures better than I did before when I listened to them. I am going to start doing 100 questions this week and really focusing even more than I have been. The only thing that is kind of worrisome in my mind is my lowest scores by subject is leadership and I know leadership is a big part of the NCLEX. So, I think I want to focus some more on leadership this week when I’m doing my questions than I have been in the past few weeks. And maybe re reading the leadership part in the pink book also.

I’m surprised on how confident I feel and excited about taking the NCLEX I am. Of course, I’m still nervous but I am also excited. This surprises me because the last times I’ve taken the NCLEX I have been really nervous and that’s it. I only felt scared of what would happen if I failed. Now all I’m thinking about how happy I’ll feel if I pass. I also think before when I took the NCLEX, I was focusing so much on the negative as in failing and trying to tell myself it’s okay if I fail and I can just take it again. And I didn’t know it at the time but looking back I think that was actually hurting my chances because I was setting myself up for failure when I thought I was just preparing myself. I plan to go in a totally different way this time.

This class has helped me out so much on knowledge and confidence that I was missing when I took the NCLEX the last two times.

After passing the NCLEX

It feels amazing passing the NCLEX. I am so thankful to this 6-week class, I learned so much in 6 weeks my head hurt most days after class because information was just flowing out. There was a lot of work to be done besides just the class even though, I barley had any time to think, but it made it all worth it in the end because I passed in 75 questions. Before the class I was wondering if that would ever happen to me, but it did, and it was a lot of work and a lot of time taken but I did make it and can officially call myself an RN. After the test shut off at 75 my heart sank, I was on a roll doing questions just like another Uworld test and didn’t even realize what question I was on because I knew a lot of what it was asking me. I can finally relax for a little while and be proud. I feel accomplished and more knowledgeable than I ever have. Forever thankful to my family and Nick.