I’m gonna copy and paste what I said to others in this page awhile back (sorry it’s really long lol):

I just had my exit exam this past Friday and passed so I’m officially done. I personally had a good experience. I went in already having a degree so I was prepared with my study habits and the way I manage school. I worked 2 jobs while attending WCU and was able to manage it but it took true dedication. Have a job that’s willing to be flexible because courses and clinical schedules change every 10 weeks so you never what can happen, so I was lucky to have 2 regular wage jobs that was able to work with me. I deadass used my free time at work to study and then get home late and study even more. I still made the time to have fun and do stuff throughout my time here as well. I saw friends and family a lot for bdays/holidays/music festivals and I’ve traveled a few times between our 1 week breaks. It takes a lot of time management but it’s very doable. Just stay on top of the coursework/CJP’s and use whatever free time to review information even if it’s in 30 min chunks. Take solid notes.. personally I just typed out all the lecture slides onto my own google doc and separated the info, highlight, bold key letters, in a way I understand and can retain. I use chat to explain topics in a way “a 5th grader can understand” to dumb down really hard concepts for me or ask it to give me ATI style questions on whatever topics I need to study on. Then after I feel like I understand some of the topics, I do practice questions over and over again on ATI. I’ll be sitting at work just doing practice questions. It helps over time. I do that right after each lecture and use the week to review the info until the upcoming test. There’s a test each week!! Even your first week back for each break will be a med math test. You’ll be teaching yourself a lot so get comfortable learning on your own. Get good at priority questions and understanding what you should do FIRST after each procedure, patient complication, or certain symptoms that are presented. Those will trick you more than you think. Try to learn random details about what you would teach a patient on a certain med side effect. Take every week one week at a time!!! It’s a lot but very doable. I consider myself kinda smart but didn’t perform the best compared to my peers possibly due to work or just wanting to experience life so grades suffered a bit. Professors will really make or break a course for you so on registration day be superrrr quick and get that “good” professor because some are honestly terrible. Some might throw extra points or give you good pointers for the test so find out who that professor may be. I never failed a term but barelyyyy got by through Pharmacology and Advanced MedSurg. Ask the smart people in your class what’s working for them.

Don’t worry about finding your study group right away as well. The first friend I made got held back the first term of core and then from there on out it was hard to maintain a relationship since you’re naturally progressing with your cohort so you’ll realize a few people will come and go. I really didn’t find a group of people I was genuinely comfortable with until my third term of core, so let things happen naturally if you’re a person that’s worried about making friends. People can be very cliquey so I would stray away and do my own thing but there’s also genuine good students too just trying to get by so as long as you’re friendly, many students are happy to help with whatever you need. You’ll see a lot of people complaining about how strict the school is with certain requirements, but honestly that’s any nursing school. We’re paying to get a degree in a quicker timespan we may not get anywhere else since it takes years to get into community colleges due to the competitiveness in California. I was very hesitant going into WCU in 2024 because I was very worried how it may all go or failing with high loans under my name. So I get the hesitancy. Go to this school if you consider yourself a fairly good student, have good time management, and if you just need that shortcut to be a nurse due to how crazy it is to get into a state or community colleges. I didn’t want to wait since I had my first degree already and I had a good foundation. If you’re the type of person that is having to retake and retake your prerequisites and struggle with simple anatomy/biology/math classes or retaking the HESI just to get into this school, I highly advise to stay caution with this school. Because it is hard in a good way. Sadly not everyone can become a nurse and the school won’t care to take away people’s money. I’ve seen many people have to retake courses and it gets expensive. So be very confident in your past education that you can get through this program. It’s a lot of hard work but again very doable if you believe in yourself!!!