Nexstars were only good for the sim that was included, and those that I've trained were ready to fly as soon as they were landing consistently on the sim. You'll find physics makes things slightly different, but nothing you can't correct. Nothing hard about flying if you got orientation down, it's the landing that is the final step to graduating out of trainers before bad habits develop that keeps you in trainers. The steep dihedral is not common in other aircraft so throwing sticks around like you can on a trainer with small control surfaces makes for a very nervous 2nd level plane experience. Get your landings down, and get out of it, move to a tail dragger/low wing trainer fast. Those students are the ones that progressed the fastest. Some, never leave a trainer, and that's fine as long as they don't mind limited aerobatics...speed...warbirds...
I coax many to try a .60 size Stick, as they were also trainers for sim graduates.