Everyone says nursing school (to become an RN) is so hard. What specifically is so hard about it?

Is it the math the chemistry the anatomy? I really want to become an RN. It scares me when everyone says this.

Some instructors are really cool and will see it your way as long as you can back it up from the textbook for the class. So you have to really read it 2 or 3 times. A lot of the instructors refuse to admit they're wrong on a test question. Clinicals are about 8 hours a day 2-3 days a week without pay. At the end of every semester there are a few women crying because they either failed the class or have done poorly enough to have to drop out. I have haggled nonstop with some instrs. and have even gone to the Dean about them and they still refuse to admit wrong doing. The main advice I can give you is to actually read the subject matter at least twice, and find out from students ahead of you which instructors are not complete witches and take them. The main problem seems to be that a lot of the instructors are for lack of a better word complete bitches.
Really know your stuff and be picky about the instructors you take. If you have to take a bad instructor just hold off on the course until you can get someone better, it will make all the difference.
The thing about the tests is that instructors will always preach "critical thinking" so you could have to choose from 4 possible answers that would all be right in reality but you have to choose the answer that is "more right", the underlying meaning of these statements is you have to think like the instructor giving the exam or you are just plain wrong. No ifs, ands or buts. And they will refuse to hear you out. The tests arent like the multiple choice ones you took through high school where you can eliminate answers to get the right one, RN course tests will have all right answers and the trick is to pick the one that the instructor would pick.
After you pass all of that then you have to deal with the RN state licensing exams which are a whole new level of hell. But anything worth doing is hard and I'm sure lesser people than you have made it. I'm an RN and work with a lot RN's who I can't even believe function in their day to day lives they are so stupid.

Im in school, my teachers are awsome, I am the only male left and they spoil me. Dont get caught up in drama I find the students more of bitches than the teachers. You try to ask a question and students answer them when I didnt ask them. Freaking idiots. Report It

Remember that you can get the LPN (licensed practical nurse)degree at your local trade school for abuot $1,500 for 15 months of training. It's a test a day, rotated thru all of your 5 subjects, so 1 test per week in each subject, and the pace of instruction is somewhat fast, but it is manageable just because the tests are so frequent. In college, you get about 4 tests per course per semester, daunting. You better not mess up one of those tests! And there are usually few clinical sites than students, so the students with the highest GPAs go first, and the rest have to wait a semester to get into clinicals.

OK, once you have the LPN you can start taking classes at the university toward your RN. The neat thing is YOU DON'T HAVE TO COMPETE for clinicals by grade point average. Your LPN training, which involved lots and lots of clinical training, can be substituted for the RN university clinicals (make sure this is the case atyour local university, but it works like that here in my town).

So when you start the RN degree, you get 1 year of credit for the15 months of LPN training you got, plus clinicals are done.

Getting the LPN is the only way to go. A bit less pressure than university, so cheap that if you flunk a class you can repeat it and don't spend a lot of money doing so.

Then you can work as an LPN on weekends and support yourself while you pursue the RN.

So investigate this route, call up the trade school and call up the university and make sure what I said applies to your schools. Even if not, having the LPN and being able to work as you finish your RN is a fantastic route to being a nurse.

Its all the above formentioned... You will just have to take the leap and trust in yourself that you can do it, esp.if you want it bad enough

I don't think the actual school would be that hard, not much harder that the actuall job, anyway.
It think it's more the people that you have to deal with when you become a nurse. The professors are usually jackasses, and patients aren't always nice, when you get a job as a nurse other employees like doctors aren';t fun to deal with, and neither are family members. If anything goes wrong it's usually the nurses who get blamed, even if it's not their fault. Nurses are often used as "scapegoats".

I have a nurse who is a friend and one of her patients died, and the guy's wife freaked out and asked her to bring him back, she was going nuts asking why noone would wake the guy up, when he was dead.

I think that the amount of money that nurses get is not really worth it for the things that they have to deal with. It depends alot on the job you get i guess. But there is a nursing shortage and it's because people just don't want the jobs, since nurses aren't treated well, and they aren't at all appreciated for the hard work they do. If you're a nurse, no matter how much you care about your patients, or how hard you work, you're always "just a nurse" you're never as good as the doctors.

It's not the subjects that make medical school hard, though they can be challenging. It's that medical school is so competitive. There are too many students trying to fill a limited number of spots. So to get in to medical school in the first place, you have to have exceptional grades. Once you get in, you have to keep up those grades otherwise you will be kicked out. You also have to watch your attendance as well. Some schools have strict policies like you can miss no more than 20% of classes, even WITH doctor's notes or you'll be kicked out. It's the competition that makes it so competitive. You are fighting to get a spot and then keep that spot. You can't just get a C and expect to stay in medical/nursing school because you almost certainly won't.