How to Study to Make the Most of Your Nursing Finals

Nursing finals are often comprehensive, and it can be challenging to remember all of the content you learned throughout the semester. Still, it’s important to finish your semester on a strong note.

To help you succeed in your nursing final exams, here are four nursing school study tips from Alison Thorpe, BS ‘19.

As soon as a lecture finished, I would find a quiet spot to re-open the PowerPoint (that was now a maze of my own notes and stick-figure diagrams) and “decode it” to create organized, topic-specific outlines. I found that this process of reorganizing the notes into my own words helped me start to make sense of the new concepts and see how they all connected.

Once I had my easy-to-read outline, it was time to get to work. Whether it was taking a highlighter and brightening up the difference between metabolic and respiratory acidosis or taking a different colored pen to rewrite symptoms of a hyperthyroid storm, I found that the more I interacted with my outlines, the more it clicked. I would aim to do this daily, that way I was able to apply the older notes as I added new outlines to my study material for a more complete understanding.

One of my favorite sayings during school was Einstein’s, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.” And what better way to do that than with a friend! After creating a good foundation of the information individually, it was time to put it to the test. I would grab a friend or two and we would start to bring the notes to life. We stretched the concepts, asked each other questions, created mnemonics and  found ways to connect ideas in different ways. Each time we would walk away with a deeper understanding. Not only was it fun to try and untangle some of the tougher pieces together, but each person brought their own way of interpreting the lectures and were able to provide their unique perspective.

Consistency is key when it comes to solidifying your understanding. Whether it’s therapeutic communication techniques or calculating fluid resuscitation for a burn patient, the more ways you can go over a topic,  the more natural it will become to recall the information when the time comes. So grab your outlines, read ‘em over (...and over and over), then maybe get coffee with a friend and talk it out!

Alison Thorpe graduated from our traditional BS in nursing program in 2019. During her time at UB, she was president of the Undergraduate Student Nursing Organization. She currently works as an emergency room nurse at Westchester Medical Center.