You're going to think I'm nuts

[ixchel]

I. LOVE. Nursing school.

There. I said it.

No, the NCLEX style questions aren't awesome. But they make you think! And when you learn the rationale behind the answer you should have picked, you learn how to be a better critical thinker. I actually LIKE that!

I've also decided I'm a B student in nursing school. I am okay with that. I have kids. I have responsibilities beyond school. I can only dedicate so much of my attention to nursing school. But I'm okay with it! I have Bs in my classes right now and that's just fine by me!

My school has a super interactive curriculum and I feel like if you don't learn it, you must have just slept through it completely because what we learn in theory is reinforced in practice. The assignments might get overwhelming some days, but we learn from them. Maybe it seems crazy to write up a teaching plan on one drug, but you now know about that drug and how to think through a teaching plan. There is a difference between learning how to do a teaching plan, and actually doing one.

Our clinicals will finally be taking us to the hospital the week after this coming week. So far we've just done skills and a senior center experience. Maybe my first semester excitement is giving me a premature boost in enthusiasm for the program, but we're halfway through the semester and I find myself excited that we still have 7 weeks left. I love learning. I love my instructors (even when we don't see eye to eye).

Yup. I'm one of THOSE people. :)

[gatoraims RN]

I love being in nursing school. I whine when I am tired, hungry, or when I have to come home and cook, but I really love it. I like learning something in one body system and then later learning "holly cow that's why beta blockers work!!!" Makes me think I am soooo smart. I love to come home and ask my husband a question that I found interesting and him not knowing the answer. I get all excited as I expalin it to him you would think I was a 5 yr old waiting to see Santa come down the chimney.

It is hard. I did not see how many OCD tendanses I have until I started nursing school. I stress myself out if I do not get an A on every test or quiz. I freak out when the instructor breaks out her red pen and marks up what I thought was such an educated care plan. I have to come home and vent with my husband or my friend who is also in my class. Makes it easier to accept me not being perfect. After a "vent off" I can accept that maybe my care plan was not as ingenious as I thought, I can look at the great comments she has left me and understand that I was not perfect but I am still kicking butt and taking names. (at least the tought brings a smile to my face)

[LeeLeeTheGPN]

I love nursing school too! You all are not alone

[bigsick_littlesick]

hahah I share your sentiments! I love nursing school as well. As hard as I have worked to get here, it has been everything I thought it would be and more.

I have made some awesome lifelong friends (and hopefully coworkers). I will never forget my wonderful, fabulous, helpful, patient instructors for without their knowledge and expertise, I would not be the student nurse that I am today. My program has a great reputation in our community and now I know why.

I love learning about medicine as well nursing and I eat up the knowledge ravenously. I will never forget my time in nursing school. I think what helped was having to wait so damn long to get in (FOUR years). In those four years, I took an EMT class, become a hospital housekeeper and just recently moved up to being a CNA there. As difficult as it is and as stressful it has been, I wouldn't change any of it.

TEN MORE WEEKS TILL PINNING FOR ME, OMG

[sckimrn]

I loved nursing school as well. It was by far the hardest thing I have ever done, but would not change a thing. And BTW, we had a saying as far as grades go: C=RN

[Streamline2010]

No, I don't think it's odd to love nursing school and be very happy there. I think it's how it should be, actually. People learn better when they are not exhausted and fearful and anxious and "fighting fires" all the time. If the instructors are proficient and organized and well-prepared, it's easier for the students to learn. I'd say if you have a majority of students saying that they HATE their school, then the school is completely to blame for it.

I can see how people burn out in just a 20-28-month program. I can see how some schools take what ought to be a fascinating and enjoyable education and turn in into sheer torture and misery and gruntwork for the students. I think that some of the schools are just bad. They have poorly-designed programs that prevent efficient learning, they pull students in too many different directions at once, the instructors are unprepared and/or they can't teach, and the demands placed on students are unreasonable. The diploma school that I was at had a rigid lockstep theory-lecture schedule, but the clinicals are on a rotation schedule that may or may not coincide with the lecture topics. Add to that, the RN theory subjects were not taught in the typical sequential blocks. It was all chopped up. They taught "normals" then "abnormals." As a result, sometimes you were doing your major clinical experience BEFORE you'd ever covered that material in class. Sometimes lecture and clinical topic meshed. And sometimes, you were doing your major clinical WAY LONG AFTER you'd covered the material in class. By not doing the relevant clinicals simultaneously with the lectures, most of the time, it was like doing double the work. If you hadn't had the clinical material before, you had to teach it to yourself to get through the clinical. If you had the lecture material too far in advance of the clinical, you had to review it all to get through the clinical. And meanwhile, the lecture/theory and exams were proceeding on at the typical pace of any nursing school.

(With L/D, we did the "normal" birthing babies one term, and then studied the "abnormals" and complications the next term. What the! Why not just study it all at the same time, start-to-finish, because how the heck can you separate it?? Why ever would you separate it???)

With that arrangement, the lecture exams were always comprised of several totally unrelated topics strung together (try GI tract, death/dying, and STDs - let's just pull topics out of a hat, why don't we.) I was always exhausted, always giving my all to do a first-rate job and learn the material in order to retain it, not just pass a test, and by the end of one year of that, I hated nursing, I hated that school, I hated opening a nursing textbook, and I told the management just what I thought, and I was out. We had at least two exams, maybe three, in that last term I was there, where fully 75%-80% of the students didn't get a passing grade! We had online simwork assignments given to us, but the school apparently didn't pay their Elsevier bill in time, because they didn't get the code number from Elsvier until 3 weeks or a month later, and then the school didn't extend the deadlines for the completion date, either! One time, we had computer-based assignments given to us, but the necessary software wasn't loaded on the school's computer until weeks later and the deadline for us wasn't extended. Dump, dump, dump on the students.

Burnout: Yeah, I had it. As a mature adult, I found the school's sub-par performance and indifference inexcusable. I still want to pommel them. Probably the rest of my class did, too, and they've only mellowed at all because they are now 2 months from graduating and can put it all behind them. Students were griping all the time, but also look at all the extra burdens and hassles we were putting up with, in addition to just the normal nursing school pressures and workload. Hospital was unbelievable, too: Patient bathrooms were always dirty. I observed a scrap of paper stay in the same spot on the OR floor for 2 days, which means that the OR floor was not even being swept or dry-mopped, much less bleached or disinfected. And the school management "just cannot understand" why I was so angry all the time?? OMG. If I had any romantic notions about nursing, I sure lost 'em after that experience.

[blackribbon]

I can't say that I like nursing school. I like nursing though. I have a problem with having several manditory extra sessions like on 'how to study' considering we all have a minimum gpa of 3.88 to be there...please don't pull me away from my family or spend my gas money for stupid things like this. The library session was good...but again, they chose when...and then even changed the time less than 48 hours before the class (required car pool scrambling on my part). I have a BS in bioengineering and am in my 40's, please don't treat me like I'm an idiot when I ask a question. I have heard "oh, you are one of THOSE students"...and "wait until your ob/gen rotation and ask them"...well, the questions were pertinent and appropriate...even if we weren't going to be tested on them...my question is now, not in six months. And don't say that you want us to succeed if you are going to act like you expect us to fail when we walk in for a skills evaluation. My nervousness is from your attitude and your lack of direction of what is expected of me and not with my ability to perform the required skill. And I am honestly working very hard to be okay when a grade is in the 80's instead of 90's but it is hard to turn off the attitude that was necessary to earn my right to be in that seat. Honestly, I couldn't care less about the grades as long as I know what I am doing...the diagnosis of grade anal-ness is r/t requirements to get in this program. I am a life peer of most the instructors (along with the life experiences that got me here...including watching a husband die of cancer at age 41)...I am just knowledge deficit in the particular area of nursing. (Can you tell I'm a bit frustrated?)

[Bremac88]

This thread was refreshing to stumble upon! I am awaiting my acceptance/denial to begin an ASN program in January and I have been having second thoughts because of all the "negativity" associated with nursing school. Thank you!

[Lynn52]

I'm a nursing student who enjoys the classroom but finds the clinicals to be overwhelming.....we are just beginning our second year in the adrn program and are down to 42 of the 96 students who began. Our school is tough and very few graduate in the end. Towards the end we will provide total nursing care to 5 patients yet, if we were hired by the hospital we are performing clinicals in we would be trained for 10 weeks to 6 months before we would care for 5 patients. I feel as if we are marginally trained and then thrown out there and then one mistake and you are potentially out.....scares the heck out of me...I truly hate it. I wish to be a nurse and a good one at that but give us a chance. I am one of the surviving 42 but I'm tired and concerned about the stress of the job once/if I graduate. Any comments would be appreciated.

[hiddencatRN, BSN, RN]

Just remember, no one (prospective hirers) cares what grade you made in nursing school.

Many new grad programs have minimum GPA requirements and I was asked for my GPA at every job I applied to as a new grad and had to provide transcripts for one of my interviews. Is it the only factor employers consider? No. But do they look at your grades? Sure do.

[Stephalump]

Many new grad programs have minimum GPA requirements and I was asked for my GPA at every job I applied to as a new grad and had to provide transcripts for one of my interviews. Is it the only factor employers consider? No. But do they look at your grades? Sure do.

Our big hospital GN programs do the same. GPA and HESI are big factors. I believe the minimum GPA is usually a 3.0-3.5.

[ChesterMcE89]

Clinicals can be hit or miss. Some days I have a great nurse who really wants to teach me, but also understands I am a student and I dont know everything yet. other days it seems like the nurses just want to make you feel bad about anything you dont know. I guess it has allowed me to see what kind of nurse i want to be.

[CloudySue]

I have a BS in bioengineering and am in my 40's, please don't treat me like I'm an idiot when I ask a question. I have heard "oh, you are one of THOSE students"...

And I am honestly working very hard to be okay when a grade is in the 80's instead of 90's but it is hard to turn off the attitude that was necessary to earn my right to be in that seat.

I was in my late 30's when I started nursing school, with my old BSEd in my back pocket. In my rinky-dink PN program in the local community college, I think some of my instructors knew I could see them as the humbug behind the proverbial curtain, and my high standards in all things intimidated them. I knew when a test question was invalid and I called them on it. Yes, it matters when an A is a 92 and I have a 91.5 and your test questions are invalid. And why do I get chastised for being so uptight about earning A's? Why, even a B is pretty darn good, so why am I "being so hard on myself"? What's wrong with wanting to do exceedingly well? Isn't that what quality instructors want to see?

I'm so glad I'm finished w that program.