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Study Strategies for Success in Accelerated Nursing Programs

Key Takeaways

  • Fast-Paced Learning: Accelerated nursing programs are intensive, requiring you to learn the same material in less time compared to traditional programs.
  • Active Learning: Engage actively with the material through discussions, teaching others, and applying lessons to real-life scenarios.
  • Time Management: Efficiently manage your time using techniques like the Pomodoro method to handle the intense coursework.
  • Study Groups: Forming study groups can enhance learning through collaboration and shared accountability.
  • Self-Care: Balancing studies with personal time and self-care is crucial to prevent burnout in accelerated programs.

It would be a mistake to underestimate the challenge of any nursing program. There is simply so much to learn in nursing, and the study demands can be intense. That intensity is taken to an even higher level when you enter an accelerated program – you still need to learn all of the same material but have less time to get it done.

This page is going to offer effective study tips for accelerated nursing students hoping to excel in their classes without feeling too stressed or rushed. By reviewing these success strategies for fast-track nursing students and thinking carefully about how they apply to your situation, you should come away with a plan that will position you to thrive in school and enter the nursing workforce as soon as possible, feeling well-trained and ready to get started.

Related:

Why Accelerated Nursing Programs Are So Challenging

The only reason you are looking for tips on how to excel in accelerated nursing programs in the first place is because of this simple fact – these programs are challenging. The inherent challenge comes from the compressed timeline that packs all of the knowledge you need to accumulate into a shorter timespan. It’s often possible to complete an accelerated program in less than two years, while a standard program may take four. That makes the math pretty easy, and you can quickly see that you’ll have to roughly double the rate of your learning to make it through the program successfully.

So, if the question is how to excel in accelerated nursing programs without much free time to work with, the answer comes down to this – you will need to be highly organized and willing to dedicate as much time as possible to studying during the course of the program. In addition to study tips, some of which we will offer below, you also need to pay attention to time management tips for accelerated nursing students, as you’ll essentially be fighting the clock throughout your time as a student in one of these programs. Later, we’ll come back to the idea of time management and how you can make sure not to waste any spare minutes.  

Start with These Fundamental Study Tips

Using the best practices for studying in accelerated nursing is going to make it far more likely that you will succeed. Sure, you could just read through the materials and hope to remember as much as possible, but that’s a method that is unlikely to succeed. Instead, have a plan and use proven study techniques that work both in nursing and beyond.

One of the best accelerated nursing program study techniques is known as active learning. This involves engaging actively with the material in a number of ways, rather than just sitting back and listening to a lecture without playing an active role. To be sure, active learning is harder, as it involves more effort, but it is known to be way more effective. This is important when you don’t have long to learn everything that you need to know to become a nurse. Some helpful active learning methods include having discussions with others about specific topics, trying to teach others things that you are learning, or going through real-life scenarios and thinking about how the lesson would apply.

Active learning is just one of many good study habits for fast-track nursing programs. Another is to take the time and effort to create your own study materials from scratch for each new topic. This could be writing out flashcards for studying later, drawing charts and diagrams, and more. You’ll benefit from this approach not only when you use the study materials, but simply the process of creating them is another form of active learning that will help the material “stick” in your brain.

Finally, it would be a mistake to ignore the weather of learning opportunity that exists on the internet today. There are plenty of free resources to be found that will help you study the material effectively. Maximizing learning in accelerated nursing courses largely comes down to giving yourself a variety of opportunities to learn key concepts in ways that won’t quickly be forgotten.

Managing Your Time is Critical

Let’s come back to the matter of time management for a moment. With so many digital distractions available to us now at all hours of the day, it has never been easier to put off actual work. It might be okay to procrastinate for a moment from time to time, but you simply can’t afford to do this very often as an accelerated student.

So, one of the key study skills for accelerated nursing students is simply to know how not to waste time during the average day. As a starting point, experiment with the Pomodoro technique. This is a habit that has you spend 25 minutes doing something very focused – like studying – before taking a 5-minute break to relax and recharge. This way, you’ll get 50 focused minutes of work every hour without pushing your brain past its breaking point.

Another good way to manage your time effectively is to schedule your entire day the night before so you are ready to be efficient as soon as you wake up. So, for example, imagine a day when you need to go to work, take a class, and spend some time studying. You already know what time you’ll be working and when class is, so you can mark out those spots on the schedule from the start. Then, look at the rest of the available hours and see where you can fit in some studying, some time for basics like eating, and hopefully a bit of relaxation time to unwind. It takes a while to get into the habit of scheduling your whole day, but it can make a big difference.

The Power of Building Study Groups

Make it a point to create a study group – or multiple study groups – that you can work with during your nursing school journey. Study groups come with a number of advantages, starting with the fact that you can hold each other accountable for the work you are supposed to be doing. Also, engaging in discussion with a study group comes back to the active learning model that we discussed previously.

One other benefit of a study group is the way the group as a whole can pull individuals through tough times. You might be facing some challenges in your life that would have otherwise knocked you off-track, but your study group may have helped you get through it and keep up. Then, when someone else in the group is facing some difficulties, you can return the favor.

Staying Balanced in the Face of a Challenge

There is no doubt that it is hard to stay balanced in life when in an accelerated nursing program. This program is going to ask a lot of you and there isn’t going to be very much time in the day to make it all happen. With that said, you are going to crash and burn in the program if you don’t at least take a little bit of time for yourself.

The self-care you engage in can take on many different forms depending on what you enjoy. Perhaps you like to run for exercise and stress relief. That’s a great habit, and even if you have to cut your runs down to a half hour rather than a full hour to make it fit into your schedule, doing the half hour is far better than not doing it at all. You can apply this kind of thinking to any hobbies or habits you might have that make you feel good and take your mind off of work and school.

We can’t promise that the tips we’ve provided here are going to make your accelerated nursing program easy or anything like that. These are hard programs to complete and you are going to need to bring your best day after day to make it happen. Studying your coursework, preparing for exams in accelerated nursing programs, and doing everything else that you have to do to succeed in this endeavor is going to be difficult.

That said, having a plan will make your life easier, and the tips on this page will help you put it all together. Good luck, and we wish you nothing but the best in your future as a nurse!