Hello, all! I finished my first year of college, which was the 2018-2019 school year with a 4.0 GPA. I was undecided then, so I focused on completing general education requirements and that’s it. After volunteering a number of hours at a local hospital, I fell in love with nursing and have been working with nurses this summer. I’ve only took one biology course last school year, which was a bio class for non science majors. Also, I am good at science, I’d say. I am an extremely hard working and good student. I’d say I’m a smart guy, but I am NOT a genius as I require myself to study a lot to do well.
Thus, I am going to apply to nursing school BSN pre-licensure for Fall 2020. This forces me to complete all of my nursing prerequisites in a year, which is possible for me to do as I met with top 8 Illinois BSN programs.
Is Fall 2019 and Spring 2020 semester course load too much? Would you recommend me not to work a job? Please give me any tips and recommendations. Do you think it is manageable and how can I manage the workload? How can I succeed in these courses? Is it possible to maintain my 4.0 GPA or at least have a 3.8 GPA or higher? I will ask follow up questions once they arise when reading your comments. Your help is much appreciated - thank you.
Fall 2019:
Anatomy and Physiology I - 4 credits
General Chemistry 1 - 5 credits
Statistics - 4 credits
Microbiology - 4 credits
Total: 17 credits
Spring 2020:
Anatomy and Physiology II - 4 credits
Elementary Organic Chemistry - 5 credits (This is a lower-level Organic Chemistry class)
Nutrition - 3 credits
Lifespan - 3 credits
World Religions - 3 credits
Total: 18 credits
I currently have an Accounting internship at a local company which ends in October 1 2019. I told my employer I will only be working 10 hours a week during the Fall 2019 semester and will not work during the Spring 2020 semester.
I will be going into my second year of college as well and this looks tough, do you have to take labs as well? I think it is manageable but it will take a considerable amount of time and effort (especially if you have to take labs with the sciences). I got a 4.0 each semester last year but I spent a lot of time studying and I had a pretty balanced schedule. I took A&P 1 lab and lecture, Intro to general, organic, and biochemistry lab and lecture, sociology, and an honors freshman class first semester. A&P 2 lab and lecture, microbiology lab and lecture, and nutrition second semester. I think that you should keep in mind that Microbiology and A&P 1 are usually the hardest classes at almost every school that I have heard people talk about. Taking those classes along with statistics and chem might be really tough. I didn’t take stats because I passed the AP exam but I have heard that college stats stuns a lot of people in its difficulty. If I were you, I would switch micro with nutrition or lifespan because I think that it’d make your course load for that semester a bit more manageable. I hope this helps… let me know if you have other questions or need any study tips 
Perfect! Thank you for the advice. Question: How should I study for A&P 1 Lab/lecture and Microbiology Lab/Lecture?
Rewrite your notes!!! At my school, most of the professors provide us with the powerpoints that they lecture off of. I have an iPad, so during lectures I write any supplemental information that they provide directly onto the powerpoint and then as soon after lecture as possible, I rewrite the powerpoint notes as well as the extra information that I added. I love reading and I don’t know if that’s why I learn this way, but I read and re-read my notes over and over and it helps me memorize the information for lectures. I will look at a header and try to say as much of the information that I remember to be in that section out loud and repeat the process over and over until I have it down. They leave classrooms and study rooms open at my school as well, so I like to use the whiteboards to draw diagrams or write information out. It’s also helpful to do it with a focused (emphasis on focused because studying with distracting people is difficult) friend because it’s proven that you learn better when you teach, so my friend and I will draw something out and “teach” each other what is happening. Anatomy 1 lab is harder because it deals with memorizing muscles, bones, and tissues more than the organ systems (I think the only body system my school did for 1 was the nervous system) and there are a lot more things to memorize. I used the models that my school had in the library to go over what I needed to know, as well as anatomy flashcards and a coloring book! Micro lab was really fun for me, we mostly just did labs that mostly corresponded with what we were supposed to learn in lecture that week and then had to complete lab reports on our own afterwards. I did have a midterm and final about the specific things we did but they were really easy if we payed attention to what we did in the labs.
Thank you so much! Message me your contact information; I would love to ask you questions if they arise. Currently it is my second day in A & P I and i’m getting my ass kicked already! Microbio and chem are okay.