Hardest Nursing Classes and How to Pass Them Well

brandon-l Written by Brandon L.
August 17, 202313 min read
hardest-nursing-classes-and-tips

With the proper nursing education, you can work as a clinic nurse, a home health nurse, a school nurse, or a palliative care nurse. You can even work as a nurse supervisor or manager. And if you want, you can even start and run your clinic in some states.

Working as a nurse is often mentally and financially rewarding. It is mentally satisfying because providing care makes us feel good about ourselves. And it is economically rewarding because nursing positions usually have good pay and exciting benefits.

But before you start thinking about what kind of nursing position you want or the rewards of nursing, you need to get a nursing education. This is where things become a little hectic.

You need to put in a lot of effort to pass a nursing program in most colleges in the US. This is because virtually all nursing programs include very tough courses/classes. And you need to complete them to graduate and get a license to become a nurse.

This post will reveal the toughest nursing classes and how to navigate them.

Let's begin.

Is Everything Hard in Nursing School?

Nursing school is hard. It isn't easy because there is so much to learn to become a knowledgeable and competent nurse. There is so much to learn to deliver quality patient care. Nursing schools must, therefore, pack a lot of knowledge into their programs to ensure they produce quality nurses.

While nursing school is not easy, nursing classes are constantly easier than others. Most nursing school classes are not very challenging. It is usually just around 30 percent of the classes that most students find difficult. So everything is not hard in nursing school.

One important thing you should know about the toughness of nursing school classes is that everyone is different. Some students will not find any classes challenging. Some students will find most classes challenging. And then some students will see most classes okay and just some classes difficult. The majority of nursing students are in this last group.

The Hardest Nursing Classes and How to Navigate Them

Let's delve into understanding the most challenging nursing classes and strategies to navigate each. The list below is not in any order.

1. Pharmacology

The pharmacology class in nursing will teach you about the drugs/medications you will commonly use or encounter as a nurse. It will teach you how various medications work, the expected positive effects, and the likely side effects. It will also teach you how to administer the drugs.

The thing that makes pharmacology a challenging class is that there are so many drugs to learn about. There is so much information about various drugs and drug classes to absorb and remember. It is time-consuming to learn all the information and revise it occasionally to ensure you remember it all (or much of it).

Strategies to navigate pharmacology classes in nursing school

The following strategy will enable you to survive pharmacology classes in nursing college

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2. Pathophysiology

The pathophysiology class in nursing focuses on illnesses. It will teach you how various diseases manifest and how to manage them. While on the surface, this class may sound easy, it is not. This is because there are many diseases that one will have to learn about and master to pass them.

The hardest thing about typical pathophysiology courses in American universities is that the diseases, illnesses, disorders, and conditions one needs to learn about are usually many. And there are also a lot of signs and symptoms to remember as well for each disease.

Strategies to navigate pathophysiology classes in nursing school

The following strategy will enable you to thrive in pathophysiology classes

3. Microbiology

Microbiology studies micro-organisms, especially the disease-causing types, including bacteria, viruses, protozoa, archaea, algae, and fungi. It is a challenging class because these micro-organisms are very different from each other, and they cause different and sometimes even similar manifesting illnesses.

Two things specifically make microbiology a challenging course. One, microbiology classes are primarily clinical. Many students find clinical assignments/practicals difficult and frustrating, especially in the first few days. Two, the classes usually involve learning about numerous micro-organisms, their characteristics, the diseases they cause, and the treatment/management options.

Strategies to navigate microbiology classes in nursing schools

The following strategies will enable you to thrive in microbiology classes


4. Human Anatomy

Human anatomy is the study of the human body. It is a challenging subject for most nursing students. It teaches about human organs, bones, muscles, tendons, ligaments, and nerves.

The most challenging thing about this course is that most of the information you will be expected to learn and master is new. You need to understand many different body parts, their location, what they do, and even the diseases that can affect them.

Strategies to navigate human anatomy classes in nursing school
The following strategies will enable you to survive human anatomy classes

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5. Surgical Course

A surgical course, aka medico-surgical course, is a special course that teaches nursing students about disease processes in adult patients and how to provide care. It is perhaps one of the most important courses nurses must take, especially those pursuing a BSN program.

The medico-surgical course is challenging because it requires a combination of information from other complex nursing courses. These courses include pharmacology, pathophysiology, and anatomy. Combining information from other courses to learn new stuff can feel overwhelming sometimes.

Strategies to navigate medico-surgical classes in nursing school

The following strategies will help you to navigate medico-surgical classes

6. Health Assessment

Health assessment is perhaps the easiest class or course on this list. Nevertheless, many nursing students do find it challenging. The course is one of the foundational courses of nurse training programs. It teaches student nurses how to do head-to-toe nursing assessments.

What makes this course difficult is that most students usually have no prior health assessment experience. Therefore, they find the whole thing complicated to understand when exposed to the comprehensive health assessment formula. However, it must be said that with time health assessment usually becomes as easy as ABC for most nursing students.

Strategies to navigate health assessment classes in nursing college

The following strategies will help you to navigate health assessment classes

7. Evidence-Based Practice (EBP)

This course is one of the toughest courses in nursing school. It teaches nursing students how to use evidence and science to care for or manage patients. The course is tough because it involves students doing a substantive amount of reading and writing plenty of accurate and evidence-backed assignments. Most nursing students find the amount of work involved in evidence-based practice very demanding.

Strategies to navigate evidence-based practice courses in nursing college

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As you Exit this Page, ….

You now know the most challenging courses in nursing school. You also know the strategies to apply to overcome these courses. Now if the thought of challenging courses had scared you out of applying to nursing school, you should reconsider. Nursing school might be challenging, but it is definitely something you can take on and graduate from.

If you are also scared of nursing school assignments, you should know you can take them on directly or indirectly using assignment help companies. Check out our homepage for information on assignment help.

We are a leading online nursing class help website. If you feel like you can use some help in your challenging nursing classes, you can hire our writers to take care of them for you. You will get passing grades and have samples to refer to, which promotes learning threefold.

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