nursing program troubles? Am I alone on this?

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I am a first semester nursing student just admitted and im struggling to hold on for dear life right now....

At my 2 year school.....here the professors are more focused on retirement planning. And our program and the instructors seem more focused on trying to run you out of the program and scare you out of the profession which if they do that, to them your just a person that is not gonna harm their 99% NCLEX pass rate so its good for them, basically it is survival of the fittest........Skills labs we get a couple hours on mon-wed-fri and no evening hours, so if your an evening student good luck. The instructors are nasty and to 90% of them any questions get met with reponses of "maybe you should buy a book" or "critically think and read" and also i am met with an feeling of "oh im sorry am I keeping you from doing your job type thing".....Plus the grading schedule is my favorite part- 97% is an A here , 95% A- 91% B+ 88 B and basically a lot of room for B- C+ and C's... the exam review sessions we get are basically put the exams on the overhead and check your answers...we get no rationales, and sadly the instructors cant even justify or explain their own questions. The exams are either you know it or you dont kind of thing...you get questions right on luck, chance.....and for Labs....our grades are all C's, they dont give anything higher than that, and that's terrible because i would love to be able to go on for my BSN/MSN and thats gonna hurt me,..like where is the incentive for me to work hard??......its awful. Plus for theory and assessment, about 95% of students get grades of C, C+ and B-, occasionally students will get lucky and a couple will get higher grades, but its the way our tests are written as i states before. Btw, noone has ever gotten an A maintained a 3.0 or higher in the major......... And my physical assessment class is the worse, ...i have a rotation of 3 instructors, and 1 who's been teaching the majority of the time, seriously just opens up the book and recites the chapters word for word....including the hands on assessments which we also figure out ourselves, plus because of the multiple instructor, team teaching philosophy : there are plenty of inconsistencies and at times they are all out of sync with each other.

We have a large amount of reading also which i never really figured out how to tackle which is another issue, Lets be serious, 9-11 chapters an exam, when exams here are like every 9-14 days is very unrealistic. Unless your name is Good Will Hunting, you're not retaining everything you've read, so all me (and everyone else does) is rewrite the powerpoint slides. Im really worried im gonna fail my theory course ,...I need 300/400 pts to pass and I currently have exam grades of 82, 82, 74, 74, and I cant seem to get any higher.

Anyone else having similar problems?? any advice?

Specializes in L&D.
I rely on power points very little. Power points print outs are a poor way to study, imo. I take notes during lecture and then after lecture I go in and clean up my notes using the Cornell note taking method.

Since you mention it, I have thought before how weird it is that some people actively encourage people to use power points to study. Power points aren't designed for studying, they're designed to be a supplement to a lecture. They're the whip cream on top of the pie, the pie is the main attraction but the whip cream makes it better. You'd never sit down and have a nice bowl of whip cream would you? I hope not :p.

:cool: I would! Whipped cream is fantastic!

...but in all seriousness, I wouldn't use a power point to study from. Reading the important sections in textbooks helps me the most.

Hi My nursing school is the same. B+ starts at 92%

Here is my advice. Read the book. Expect long studying hours. Form good productive studying groups. Try to make your own rationales together. See how others think and their opinions. There are more than one right rationale. Get interested with the subject along with your peers. Nurses work together, student nurses work together. Try it.

I've done literarly everything possible, through excessive reading and studying and practice nclex questions but still stuck in mediocrity....and i am passing but its frustrating that I work that hard and get C's? I was in Rad tech school for 2 semesters first and I was aceing exams, and I switched because I was intrigued by nursing and its flexibility and security.... and in nursing school its no matter what i do? it doesnt matter?

The grading scale really doesnt bother me as much as my exam struggles, especially since C= RN......that does kind of bug me though because what if you want to go get an FNP someday? wont having straight C's in nursing classes but A's in other classes and field experience still hurt you ???? Anyone know the answer to that??

My ultimate goal would have been a RPA (if i stayed on the Rad tech track) or an FNP, which in nursing seems out of the question for me with these theory classes i struggle with...... Now im thinking and thinking cautiously if backtracking to Rad Tech where i was successful will be good, because i just dont think im cut out for RN school?

are you taking fundamentals of nursing?

fundamentals of nursinf 4crs and health assessment .... and from there my program is setup just a theory and a clinical for the next two semesters and then last semester is pharmacology and theory and clinical

Fundamentals was not my cup of tea. I over-analyzed everything, read each chapter 3 times, and used the cd that came with my book. I also drew out concepts that I had a difficult time understanding. For me, fundamentals was pure hell--gives me chills just thinking about it.

By the time I entered my med/surg (2nd quarter), I was so discouraged because of how much studying I was doing, but my grades stayed in the B- to B+ range. So I stopped reading all those chapters, used my powerpoints as a guide instead. I made flash cards for each slide and would only read if there was something I did not quite understand. This different method didn't improve my grades, but I was able to understand concepts better AND I had extra time to hang out with my family.

As you progress through school, putting those "puzzle pieces" together becomes much easier. I was told during my first quarter, by an upper class-man that, we would all eventually get to a point where we will know what we need to actually study for our exams; studying for everything will be a thing of the past. And you know, she was right.

We have to have an 84% (B-) to pass classes. Prior to my acceptance into my program, I had all A's. Our school is very competitive and so, most of the fundamental students still hold on to that competitiveness and become upset if they're not getting A's on every exam or paper. I've come to terms with the fact that I will never get all A's in nursing school. It doesn't mean I'm stupid; it just means that nursing school presents different types of challenges that are not always compatible with my personal life, which is why having the appropriate amount of support is priceless.

My advice to you is stop worrying about your grades; they are what they are. If you don't have a CNA background or some other medical background, then fundamentals may be more challenging. That's okay. Go to lab to practice your skill technique as often as you can. Maybe you need to brush up on your pathophysiology or A&P to make those fundamental connections. I basically had to relearn A&P and patho my first two quarters, so that was even more studying on top of nursing school stuff. Make sure you're getting sleep. If you're studying while your head is rolling all over the place, then you're not retaining anything. Drink lots of water and eat to feed your brain (think glucose) while studying.

I hope that helps.

yes, i read everything, and yes it does help. i did retain the the info i read, most of it, i am a reader by nature. i love reading. i do not believe i am doing myself a disservice by being a nurse, i am a nurse now, because i definitely do not want to be a doctor.

i read everything. i read in a quiet room with classical music. i literally read everyday after school from 2-3 until 9 pm when it was bed time. home cooked meals went "bye bye", my house cleaning was lacking, but i made a's and b's in nursing school.

read the "bubbles" in the book. do not memorize it, understand it. take practice tests in your book and online, these do come with rationales!

Specializes in NREMT-P, GN.

Hi mttzakr87,

I would like to suggest to you to hang in there. Just think of all the work you have done and have already passed to get to the point where you are at right now. I understand that i can be very frustrating, but there are other options. Right now all you need to do is to study to pass the classes. Believe it not you will retain a lot just by doing that. As a supplement, get as many NCLEX testing books (with CD's) that you can and do the practice tests, start now. The NCLEX books will give you rationals.

And no matter how bad you think you have it, there is probably someone else out there that has it worse.

As an example, I am about to graduate (hopefully) in three weeks. At my school we are not even allowed to go over our tests, let alone get any rationals for incorrect answers. We have asked dozens of times for the school to change this policy but they will not. Apparently they had some big cheating scandal about 5 years ago and it has traumatized the entire staff. So we just push forward.

Don't give up!:up:

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