First of all RELAX! Yes, nursing school is hard and it will beat you up a bit but you will not survive if you are stressed out. You will hear horror stories from friends, family, other nursing students about how rough it will be, but don't listen to all of this.
Take sometime to think about your life and how to keep it in order, set your priorities (nursing school should be up toward the top), make sure you are balanced and you will be fine.
As far as being prepared for the first day, I would suggest taking a crash course in critical thinking. If you plan to pass the NCLEX you must learn how to think critically. Buy a book off of Amazon.com or from Barnes and Nobel that talks about basic test taking strategies and critical thinking steps and work though it. One book in particular that I study almost more than my text books is: Test Success for beginning nursing students. It provides some test taking tips and strategies as well as critical thinking basics.
Seriously, relax. Get a gym membership or find out if your school has a free gym (mine does). If you are not taking care of yourself you won't make it. Take a speed reading course or learn how to improve reading comprehension. There is a lot of reading in nursing school, and if you are like me you don't really learn by reading. Learn how to comprehend more of your reading.
Go to the VARK website and find out what your preferred learning style is. Take the simple test on that site and then spend sometime researching ways to enhance your learning through that method. I am a kinesthetic learner, which means I learn by doing so I take TONS of practice tests per each chapter. I also draw pictures and go to the lab a lot. This is how I learn but it is different for everyone. I can't read my text word for word, for me that is just a waste of time.
