Podcast lover? Listen to this topic in episode #497 by hitting play above, or find it in your favorite podcast player.

If you’re reading this and nursing school is right around the corner, I want you to know something first: The way you spend the weeks before nursing school starts and the days of your first week matter more than most students realize. The students who walk into nursing school feeling calm and prepared get that way by doing a few key things before the demands of nursing school become unmanageable.

This post is going to walk you through exactly what those things are, split into two parts: what to do the week or so before you start nursing school, and what to focus on once you’re actually in week one.

PART ONE: Before your first day of nursing school

Read your syllabi (all of them!)

Read every single syllabi the moment they’re available. I don’t mean skim them, you’ve got to actually read them.

Here’s what you’re specifically looking for:

• The grading scale and minimum passing score. This one surprises a lot of students because nursing school passing thresholds are often 75, 76, or even 80 percent, and that’s not the same as what “passing” meant in your prerequisites. Some programs also require a minimum score specifically on exams, separate from your overall course grade. You need to know exactly what constitutes passing versus failing before you’re sitting in front of a test, not after.
• The late policy on assignments.
• The attendance policy.
• Any required purchases or access codes.
• Anything due in the first week or two that you might not expect. One of the most common surprises in nursing school is a dosage calculations exam that shows up in the first couple of weeks, often with a required passing score of 95 to 100 percent. That is not the kind of thing you want to find out about the night before.
• Understand how grades are calculated. Does your program round? Is there a curve? Are ATI or HESI assessments weighted heavily or barely at all? Does your lowest exam score get dropped? Knowing how the math works means you can make strategic decisions about where to put your energy all semester long instead of discovering the rules too late to adjust.
• Take note of exit exams. Some programs have exit exams each semester, which you are required to pass in order to advance. The top two exam platforms utilized are ATI and HESI. Understanding this requirement means the difference between studying consistently for the exam throughout the semester, or panic studying a few days before.

💡 The syllabus is your contract with your professors. Read it like one.

Map your entire semester in one sitting

Once you have your syllabi, open your planning system and put every single due date, exam date, clinical day, skills lab, and major commitment into it before school starts. 

I want you to do this in one sitting, and here’s why. Your brain uses real mental energy just tracking what’s coming. Every time you wonder when that exam is or try to remember whether you have skills lab this week, that’s energy that could be spent actually learning. When you map the semester upfront, you do that work once and your brain gets to stop worrying about it.

It also gives you visibility that changes how you plan. You can see when the heavy weeks are coming, figure out where to front-load your studying, and spot the weeks that have a little more breathing room. That kind of clarity is genuinely powerful and it costs you maybe an hour or two of your time.

Set up your organizational systems now

This is the one students most often say they’ll do once things settle down. Here’s the reality: things do not settle down in nursing school. Week one is the calmest week you will have all semester, and it’s still pretty intense. If you wait until things feel manageable to get organized, you’ll be waiting until graduation.

Set up three things before school starts.

• A digital filing system. Create a folder for each course with subfolders for notes, assignments, and downloads. Do this before you have a single file to put in it, so that when handouts and lecture slides start coming in, everything already has a home.
• One place for all your lists and tasks. Not a note here and a sticky note there and a reminder on your phone. One place. When everything lives in one place, you stop losing things and you stop carrying that quiet background anxiety of feeling like you might be forgetting something important.
• Get your planning system up and running. Whether that’s a digital calendar, a paper planner, or some combination of both, pick it and start using it now. Not just for school things, but for everything. When your whole life is in one place, you can actually see your time clearly and make real decisions instead of just reacting to whatever feels most urgent.

If organization doesn’t come naturally to you, I walk through how to build all of this step by step inside my nursing school prep course, Crucial Concepts Bootcamp.

Review key anatomy and physiology concepts

I am not telling you to re-read your entire A&P textbook. What I am telling you is to refresh the foundational concepts that are going to show up constantly in nursing school, because nursing builds on this foundation continuously. The students who have it solid going in have a real advantage.

Here’s what to focus on:

Respiratory: Oxygenation, gas exchange, and ventilation. Understand what each one means and how they’re different from each other, because that distinction is going to matter more than you think once you’re in your clinical rotations.

Cardiovascular: How blood pressure is regulated, including cardiac output, stroke volume, preload, and afterload. This is a concept you will use every single day as a nurse. Also do a refresh of the pathway blood takes through the heart and lungs. When that flow pathway is automatic in your head, understanding heart failure, shock, and valve disorders becomes so much more manageable.

Fluids: Tonicity and fluid compartments. Where does fluid live in the body, how does it move from one compartment to the next, and what drives that movement. This is foundational to so much of what you’ll see clinically.

Endocrine: The key hormones and how feedback loops work, including both positive and negative feedback. You don’t need to memorize every hormone in existence. You need to understand the mechanism of how the body regulates itself.

Neurotransmitters: Know the major players and what they do. This comes up in pharmacology constantly and will make that already challenging topic much more manageable.

Acid-base balance: How the body maintains homeostasis and the role of the respiratory and renal systems in keeping pH in range.

If any of these feel shaky, spend some time reviewing them now, while you have the luxury of doing a solid, unhurried review.

Read The Ultimate Nursing School Thrive Guide

Okay, shameless plug, but genuinely: I wrote this book specifically for you. It covers time management, important mindset shifts (including that very real imposter syndrome and the “am I too old for this?” spiral), a full breakdown of the different types of nursing school classes, tips for conquering exams and clinical, and strategies for actually staying healthy while you’re doing all of it. If we could sit down over coffee and snacks and I could share every piece of advice I wish someone had given me before nursing school, this book is exactly that conversation. You can find it on Amazon here (#ad)!

PART 2: Once you’re in week one

Introduce yourself to your professors and clinical instructor

In week one, make a point of introducing yourself to your professors in person. I know this feels awkward for a lot of students, and I get it. But there is a real and meaningful difference between sending an email and actually walking up after class, making eye contact, and saying hello. In a face-to-face program, that in-person moment is worth so much more than a message sitting in someone’s inbox. You become a real, memorable person instead of a name on a roster.

The same goes for your clinical instructor, and this one might actually matter even more. Your clinical instructor isn’t evaluating you on written exams. They’re watching how you show up, how you communicate, how you handle pressure and uncertainty in real time. The rapport you build with them early sets a tone for the entire clinical experience. Introduce yourself early on and show them from the start that you’re engaged and intentional.

If you’re in an online program or have online classes, email is the way to go and the same principles apply. Be specific, be genuine, and don’t wait until you need something from them to make that first contact.

Start studying before you feel like you need to

Nursing school has a way of hitting the ground running from day one, so resist any urge to coast through week one because you assume it will be lighter. This is the week to establish your rhythm and build the consistent routine that’s going to carry you through the harder weeks ahead.

The students who do well in nursing school aren’t the ones who suddenly figure out how to study the days before a big exam. They’re the ones who already have consistency in place long before the pressure hits.

Here are two shifts that can dramatically change your performance. First, think of studying as daily review after lectures, skills lab, and clinical, rather than a pre-exam scramble. When you’re reviewing consistently, you’re essentially already prepared when the exam arrives. Second, every time you sit down to study, have a clear goal for what you want to walk away understanding. Not how many pages you want to read or how many hours you want to log. Instead, set a real goal, like “I’m going to understand how to analyze an arterial blood gas” or “I’m going to review the pharmacologic treatments for asthma.” Once you’ve reached that goal, take a break, set a new one, and go again.

I teach the full system for this inside Crucial Concepts Bootcamp, but these two shifts alone will set you apart from the student who stays up all night before every exam.

Do a dry run before your first clinical day

This one sounds almost too simple to mention, but I’m mentioning it because I’ve watched it matter more than students expect. Before your first clinical day, drive the route. Find out where you’re going to park. Figure out where the entrance is, whether there’s a security checkpoint, and how long it actually takes you to get there when your clinical starts at 0630, not at 1400 on a Tuesday when Google Maps anticipates a completely different traffic pattern.

Showing up to your first clinical day flustered, late, or lost costs you mentally in a way that’s hard to recover from in those first few hours. Your brain is already going to be working overtime processing a brand-new environment, new faces, and new expectations. Remove every variable you possibly can before you walk through that door. A dry run doesn’t take long and it buys you real peace of mind.

Start a running list of things you don’t understand yet

Nursing school moves fast, and one of the things that quietly derails students is letting confusion accumulate. You don’t follow something in lecture, you tell yourself you’ll come back to it, and then three more things pile on top of it, and suddenly you’re studying for your first exam with a list of unresolved gaps you never went back to address.

The fix is simple. Keep a running list in one place such as your notes app, your planner, or a section of your binder and use this to jot down anything that didn’t click. A term you didn’t recognize. A concept your professor mentioned in passing that you didn’t fully follow. A question you didn’t ask out loud but meant to look up later. An acronym you’ve never seen or heard before.

The list itself isn’t really the point. The habit of capturing confusion instead of letting it float away is the point. And then actually going back to it during your next study session, during office hours, or when you have a few spare minutes, and chipping away at it one item at a time. This is how you prevent small gaps from becoming big ones.

Protect at least one non-school block per week

You’ve probably heard things like “nursing school is all-consuming” and “be prepared to sacrifice everything.” And I’m not going to pretend nursing school isn’t demanding, because it is. But the version of nursing school where you have zero life, zero rest, and zero time for anything that brings you joy is not sustainable. It is a straight path to burnout.

Rest isn’t the opposite of productivity. It’s part of it. Your brain consolidates learning during rest. Your ability to focus and think clearly depends on sleep, movement, and recovery. Students who burn completely flat by week six have nothing left when it really counts.

So decide right now, in week one, that you are a whole person who is going to nursing school. Not a nursing student who used to have a life. Pick one block per week to claim just for you. Maybe it’s a workout, a walk, dinner with your family, a show you love…whatever fills your tank. Put it in your calendar, and protect it. For me it was exercise, a leisurely bath every Sunday evening, and a strict bedtime that made sure I always got enough sleep. Find your version of that and guard it all semester.

Be intentional about your study group

Study groups form fast in nursing school and the dynamic that gets established early tends to stick. Pay attention to this, because it has a real impact on how effectively you use your time.

A good study group makes you sharper. Everyone comes prepared, you have clear goals for what you’re going to accomplish together, you quiz each other, you talk through concepts, and you leave feeling more confident and ready than when you arrived.

A study group that isn’t working often feels productive even when it isn’t. There’s a lot of chatting, a lot of commiserating about how hard everything is, and not a lot of actual learning happening. And it is genuinely hard to change that dynamic once it’s established.

You don’t need a big group, and you don’t need a group at all if solo studying works better for you. But if you’re going to study with other people, be thoughtful about who those people are and what your sessions actually look like. I did a full breakdown on this if you want to go deeper on why most study groups are a waste of time and what to do instead.

Putting it all together

Starting nursing school the right way isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing the right things so that when the hard weeks arrive (and they will) you’re not trying to build your foundation while the house is already going up in flames around you.

Before school starts:

• Read your syllabi the moment they’re available, and understand exactly how your grades are calculated
• Map your entire semester in one sitting
• Set up your organizational systems before you have anything to put in them
• Review your key A&P foundations: respiratory, cardiovascular, fluids, RAAS, endocrine, neurotransmitters, and acid-base
• Read The Ultimate Nursing School Thrive Guide (#ad)

Once you’re in week one:

• Introduce yourself to your professors and your clinical instructor in person (or by email if you’re in an online program)
• Start studying before you feel like you need to, and think about how you’re studying, not just when
• Do a dry run before your first clinical day
• Start a running list of things you don’t understand yet and actually go back to it
• Protect one non-school block per week and guard it
• Be intentional about who you spend your study time with

If you want a framework for what studying smarter actually looks like once you’re in it, my free Nursing School Survival Blueprint is the place to start. It walks you through the three pillars that separate students who thrive from students who just survive, and it’s completely free. Grab it through the link below.

And if you’re ready to go all in with a full nursing school prep system, Crucial Concepts Bootcamp was built for exactly this moment…those precious weeks before school starts when you have the time and headspace to actually set yourself up for success.

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The information, including but not limited to, audio, video, text, and graphics contained on this website are for educational purposes only. No content on this website is intended to guide nursing practice and does not supersede any individual healthcare provider’s scope of practice or any nursing school curriculum. Additionally, no content on this website is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.

Last Updated on August 22, 2026 by Maureen Osuna, MSN, RN