15 Study Tips & Secrets To Be Successful In CRNA School
Do you want to learn how to master studying in CRNA School? Here are pro tips from an ex-student for you to ace your time in CRNA School.
Do you want to learn how to master studying in CRNA School?
In this post, I’m going to tell you step by step how to master studying in CRNA School. It idefinitely can be rough when you’re finally in school but were an ICU nurse for a couple of years previously. Getting back into the mindset of being in school can be troublesome. Here you’ll learn how to get yourself right back into the action of studying and being one of the most effective students in school.
Towards the end of the post, I have three special BONUS tips from my experience that did wonders when I was in school.
If you want to learn how to reset yourself to ace in CRNA School, here are my most efficient tips for you:
Tip #1 Learn Your Study Style
What type of learner are you?
Are you a visual learner?
Are you an audio learner?
Are you more of a learner who loves being taught?
Definitely figure that out early on so you can know what studying styles will work best for you.
Tip #2 Stay Organized
Make a plan and organize all of your daily activities. See what things are top priorities vs. low priority. Put all of that in a list.
Doing so can definitely help you organize yourself and help you plan your future in regard to studying.
Staying organized and planning ahead will help you from procrastinating and waiting until the last minute. Procrastination can hinder your performance as a student.
Just remind yourself that you want to be the best that you can be as a CRNA student. If you start studying ahead and review concepts early, when you have an exam or paper, you’re well ahead.
If you don’t like studying ahead of time I can definitely understand that because when I was a freshman in college, I would study the night before. I used to do my papers the night before. But that is risky.
Using a planner is great to keep organized
Tip #3 Brainstorming for Papers
CRNA school is a whole other world. The information that you learn is rigorous. What I’ve learned is if I have a paper that’s due in a month, I should start brainstorming and writing down notes as soon as I can. You should take notes about what to talk about in your paper and what is going to be the prime focus. I work on a Google word document to write down a visual outline. It greatly helps when you sit down to write your paper.
Tip #4 Make Review Sheets
For an exam, I prepare a review sheet to organize my study plans. Writing down the topics that I’m going to be tested on was important to get my mind ready for what I have to study for a specific exam.
Tip #5 Focus on One Topic at a Time
When you’re studying in the library, at home, in your office or on the beach, focus on one topic at a time.
For example, if you have Pathophysiology and Physics, take time to organize what’s your priority. You have a Physics exam tomorrow and you have a paper for research. Try to organize your time; take 30 minutes on one topic and 30 minutes on another topic. Then repeat.
Tip #6 Prioritize Your Time
Sometimes you get lost in studying. You may be studying for a specific topic, but don’t understand the content. You’re just sitting there for hours draining yourself on that topic. In these situations, you need to take a break.
I would recommend to use a timer. Give yourself an hour on one topic, then step away from it and come back to it in the future.
Tip #7 Divide Up Your Work
Dividing up the work makes it more manageable. It enables you to deal with the information that is presented in front of you.
You should reward yourself for completing specific tasks.
Tip #8 Take a Break
One of the most essential parts of studying is taking breaks. A lot of studies have shown that if you study for 45 minutes, you should take at least a 10 to 15-minute break.
You may have tons of information to study. But no matter what, after that 45-minute mark, the absorption rate of the content just starts decreasing. Over time it’s not effective. It’s going to be meaningless. So definitely take breaks.
Tip #9 Sleep is Important
To tie that in with taking breaks, you have to sleep. I know you may say to yourself I need to stay up all night and study. When I was in school, I actually gave my husband the right to tell me that “hey it is time to go to sleep”, or “it is time to take a break”. I even had a newborn baby when I was in school.
Sleep is important. When your mind is resting you actually get to absorb a lot of the content. It sharpens your focus and improves your working memory.
Tip #10 Set Schedule
It will make your studying more productive if you take time to have sessions. Take an hour for physics, an hour for pathophysiology, and an hour for planning for your next day. In clinicals just try to give yourself a plan and set a schedule so you can abide by it.
This way you can cover a lot more information in a shorter period of time.
Tip #11 Taking Notes in Class
Another really good tip that helped me when I was in CRNA school was taking notes in class. I am a visual learner. When I write, for some reason, I actually understand the content better.
Another key tip that I learned in CRNA school was a lot of the topics discussed in class were on the exams Your Professors will hit on certain topics in class, he wouldn’t expand a hundred percent on it but he’ll hit on certain content.
So writing notes and taking ideas that you realize are important and discussed is the key. You should definitely read all the content in the book but focus on certain areas that your professor was focusing on in class to help you with passing the exam.
Tip #12 Teach Someone and Get Ideas
You will not know everything and there’s always someone in your class or who you’re studying with that is really good at certain content. It’s great to bounce ideas off that person. You will be strong in a certain area that you’ll be great to explain it to someone. Teaching is the best way to solidifying the information for exams.
Tip #13 Make an Appointment with Professors
Say, you’re in school and you talk to your classmates. You had your study session and there are still things that you just don’t understand, it’s still not clicking. I honestly recommend setting up an appointment with your Professors. They always have office hours. Set up an appointment with them and try to go over the information that you don’t understand.
Tip #14 Always Review Your Past Exams
Review all of your previous exams. When I was in school, I always made an appointment with my Professors to review my exams to see what questions I got right, what questions I got wrong and then discuss how I could have done better.
At the end of the year, there will be a final exam. A lot of time that I’ve learned throughout my experience that the previous questions they realize a lot of students got wrong, are reasked them on the final exam.
Therefore, when you do have your final exam at least you’ll have some exam questions that you will get right.
Tip #15 Keep Hydrated
Always remind yourself to keep hydrated. Make sure you’re eating. Make sure you’re taking care of yourself because you want to study for hours. You’ve got to eat to feed your brain so you can be the most effective study person in school.
Now for the bonus tips:
Bonus Tip #1 Record All Classes
You need to get yourself a recorder to record all of your classes.
Why?
Many times a lot of the content discussed in class will be on your exams. Sometimes you may have a student in the class that may answer something on a really thorough topic and you might find it useful for yourself. If you have a recording, you can listen to that over and over and solidify it in your brain.
When you’re driving in your car, doing laundry, cleaning your house or you’re making dinner, you can just put that recorder in your ear and listen to those topics. This way you can study while you’re doing errands, which is great.
Bonus Tip #2 Make Flashcards
For me what worked well was making flashcards. They weren’t big paragraph flashcards, but bullet points of certain topics that were essential for me to understand in the book as well as in the class.
I liked making tables, graphs and going through all my content. When I had to study or do a review before the morning of an exam, I would review my flashcards.
Taking notes in class and during lectures will keep your mind engaged on the content being taught in the class. It will narrow the knowledge and content for your flash cards.
You may like studying in a group, one on one or maybe over the phone. When I was in school, one of my close classmates and I would talk over the phone reviewing important topics in lecture and textbook.
We used to go through the textbook chapters together, read through it and explain it to each other. Honestly, that helped me a lot with understanding the content.
Bonus Tip #3 Practice Exams
I used practice exams from Valley Anesthesia and those available in certain textbooks.
I’ve heard that schools are recommending Apex. It’s a perfect way of going through exams and practicing. Many times in the exams you may know the information but might lack in test-taking skills.
If I missed any specific study tip that works best for you, definitely put it in the comments below. Share your wealth of knowledge to help others maximize and master studying in school.
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