Nursing programs require a mix of science prerequisites, general education courses, and nursing-specific classes that build from foundational knowledge to hands-on patient care. The exact list varies by school and degree type, but the core structure is remarkably consistent across accredited programs. Here’s what to expect at each stage.
Science Prerequisites You’ll Take First
Before you start any nursing-specific coursework, you need to complete a set of science courses, most of which include a separate lab component. These are the gatekeepers of nursing school, and programs are strict about them. At NYU’s College of Nursing, for example, all prerequisites must have been completed within the past 10 years and with a grade of C or better.
The standard science prerequisites include:
- Human Anatomy with lab
- Human Physiology with lab (some schools combine these into a two-semester Anatomy & Physiology sequence)
- Chemistry with lab, typically a course geared toward health sciences rather than general chemistry
- Microbiology with lab (required at most BSN programs)
- General Biology with lab (required at some traditional BSN programs as a foundation before the more advanced sciences)
Labs are not optional. Nursing programs want you to have spent time with microscopes, specimens, and hands-on experiments, not just lectures. At the University of Miami, traditional BSN students must take their anatomy and physiology courses through the School of Nursing itself, with no exceptions for substituting courses from other departments.
General Education Courses
Alongside or before your science prerequisites, you’ll complete several non-science courses that support clinical reasoning and patient communication. These typically include:
- Statistics: You’ll use this to understand research findings and evidence-based practice throughout your career.
- Developmental Psychology: Covers human growth and behavior from infancy through old age, which directly applies to caring for patients at every life stage.
- Nutrition: Foundational knowledge for patient education and managing diet-related conditions.
- English Composition: Most programs require one or two writing courses.
Many of these can be completed at community colleges or online, as long as the institution is accredited. Some schools also accept AP exam scores of 4 or 5 if the exam was taken within the last five years.
Core Nursing Courses
Once you’re admitted to a nursing program, the curriculum follows a structured progression from introductory concepts to advanced clinical specialties. Purdue University’s BSN program illustrates a typical sequence across three levels, each requiring a minimum grade of C and a 2.75 GPA to advance.
In your first level of nursing courses, you’ll cover health assessment (learning to take a patient history, perform physical exams, and identify abnormal findings), pathopharmacology (how diseases work and how medications treat them, typically split across two semesters), population health, and the foundations of evidence-based practice.
The second level shifts toward specific patient populations and clinical conditions. Expect courses in adult health (often spanning two semesters to cover acute and chronic conditions), psychiatric and mental health nursing, and maternity or childbearing family nursing. Integration seminars pull together what you’re learning in the classroom with what you’re experiencing in clinical rotations.
The final level rounds out your education with pediatric nursing, public health nursing, leadership and management, and a capstone course focused on transitioning into professional practice. This is also when many students complete their most intensive clinical rotations.
What BSN Programs Add Beyond an ADN
An Associate Degree in Nursing (ADN) and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) both prepare you to sit for the NCLEX-RN licensing exam, but their curricula differ in depth. Both focus on clinical patient care skills, but BSN programs add coursework in public health, nursing ethics, theoretical nursing concepts, pathophysiology, and microbiology, according to the American Nurses Association. Leadership, research methods, and community health nursing are also typically BSN-only courses. These additional classes generally add about two years to the degree, bringing the total to four years compared to two for an ADN.
Clinical Rotations and Skills Labs
Classroom learning is only part of the picture. Clinical rotations place you in hospitals, clinics, and community health settings to work directly with patients under supervision. At the College of New Jersey, BSN students begin clinical experiences in their sophomore year and continue for five semesters, spending eight to ten hours per week in clinical settings in small groups of no more than ten students.
Before you’re allowed near a real patient, you’ll practice in skills labs using mannequins and simulation equipment. The skills you’ll learn in lab range from the basics (hand hygiene, taking blood pressure and pulse, donning protective equipment) to more complex tasks like catheter care, wound management, and medication administration. As you advance, simulations grow more sophisticated, often involving computerized mannequins that can mimic breathing problems, irregular heart rhythms, and other emergencies you’ll need to respond to quickly.
Entrance Exams to Prepare For
Most nursing programs require a standardized entrance exam as part of the application. The two most common are the TEAS and the HESI A2, and your school will specify which one it accepts.
The TEAS covers four areas: reading, math, science, and English language usage. It’s a broad assessment of academic readiness. The HESI A2 covers similar ground (math, reading, vocabulary, grammar) but may also include an anatomy and physiology section, depending on the school. Both exams test material you’ll encounter in your prerequisite courses, so completing your sciences and general education classes before testing tends to improve scores significantly.
Not every program requires the same exam or the same minimum score, so check your target school’s admissions page early. Some competitive programs use entrance exam scores as a significant factor in ranking applicants.
How Course Requirements Vary by Program
While the overall structure is consistent, the details shift depending on the type of program. A traditional four-year BSN will spread prerequisites across the first two years and nursing courses across the last two. An accelerated BSN for students who already hold a bachelor’s degree in another field compresses the nursing coursework into 12 to 18 months, often with fewer general education requirements since those were completed during the first degree. ADN programs at community colleges focus heavily on clinical skills and condense the academic content into roughly two years.
RN-to-BSN programs, designed for working nurses who already hold an associate degree and an RN license, skip the introductory nursing courses entirely and focus on the upper-level content: leadership, community health, research, and public health nursing. These are often available fully online and can be completed in one to two years.
Regardless of the path, expect every accredited program to require the same science foundations, the same core clinical competencies, and a structured progression from basic skills to complex patient care. The differences lie in pacing, depth of general education, and how much leadership and public health content is included.