Even though I just graduated from a 4-year BSN program (with a minor), I do at times look back and wish that I would have gone to a CC (only because I would now have about 2 years of experience under my belt, and I would have a nice hump of change in my bank account).
I had a full ride to college, so the debt was not an issue for me; however, I really felt like I wasted more time than anything (2 years worth of time taking bull**** gen-eds), which to me is much more precious. I also moved far away from friends, had no social life, and just... hated college. On top of that, I just realized a few weeks ago that the CC that I would have gone to has had like 95-100% pass rates since 2000, versus my 4-year program that has NEVER had a 100% pass rate (68-95%).
Can you believe that!?!?!?!?
So do I feel like poo? Yup... Can I change it??? No. Instead, I keep it moving...
I mean, yea, it's nice to be able to put the creds RN, BSN behind your name and all, but at the end of the day, that will be overshadowed by either CRNA or some sort of NP (hopefully WHNP) that I'll achieve in the future anyway, soooo yea...
And I will get paid slightly more for my BSN... but does that give me back the 2 yrs that I felt I wasted... Nope.
I have wondered about CC 2 year or university 4 year training in college before, I realize today that the 2 years between ADN and BSN schooling does make differences in the way you think and analyse the complexity of human disease process. 4 year schooling provides you a better preparation for complicated patient care, but 2 year CC training does not provide a solid analytical ground for critical thinking. you may not know at this time, but it does make difference in the way we look at things, analyse and respond. To do good on NCLEX , one only need to prepare for it like prepare for high school SAT.
Loved community college because tuition is less, smaller classes, professors/instructors do not have to publish and enjoy teaching, and the college was close to home. I transferred from the community college to a BSN program and never looked back. For those who paid top dollar for their 4 year university education, they may have a nice diploma to hang on the wall, but they are also repaying large student loans.
How many patient cares have you done since graduated from Community college?
[quote=LotusRN1972;5590985]Hello My Friends,
Your assistance is needed more than ever!!!
I am a new grad straight out of school AND I landed a job in a SNF/LT/Rehab in San Diego.
The problem???
1)Well, I notice that I receive report in Tagalog (I speak English) and am constantly spoken about in the language. This is from SEASONED (15-20 years at the facility nurse(LVN's, I rarely see RN's)).
2) Patients (who are NOT Philipino) are treated with so much disregard, it is sad to see!!! They are yelled at, left in the hallways (without water, with mouths wide open= excessive thirst).I do attend to these patients my self ........
sounds like the place you are working for is a type of skilled nursing facilitiy, if so, it should have many nursing assistants available for you as RN to take advantage, some nursing assistants are bossy, rude and hiding, but some are very konwledgeable and responsible, get to know them and arrage patient care assignments to them, be strong on your attitude when you face the rude nursing assistants, most likely they would avoid the assisgnment from you if you are too soft. I really dislike to face the disparity problems in the patient care today, it seems like health care field is a play ground for some health care professionals to practice racial discrimination and persue personnal revange, while many people use a great effort to build up the tower of humanity, some narrow minded individuals hide in the back trying to degrade it. It is such a shame! You move on as a good nurse and do good as you suppose to, do not be one of those nurses. Love you and best regard to you.
Don't mean to upset nursing professionals, half of my families work in hospital as medical doctors or nurses, I truly respect every medical professional in this world. I just want to be realistic, If language profeciency is the dominate factor in medical diagosis, procedures and treatment, then the medical industries would not hire professionals who are not considered proficient in American language. I happen to know that half of M.D. working in John Hopkin Hospitals speak with accents, if language is a primary concern and can affect the quality of work, than John Hopkin would not hire them. There are reasons for hospital industry to use medical and nursing professional from different cultural background. I have a nursing background and also an bioengineer, I can see the trend of health care is to replace nursing work with technology, you are right, it does not matter how many language or what languages we are capable to speak, it would never be enough to accommodate the need in health care field. many hospitals begin to use robotic system to deliver and check medication treatment, computerized translators are also installed in patient's rooms to assist in communications, right now robot nurses are put in trial stage in hospitals in Japan, computerized medical system are heavily designed, utilized and implemented to meet the weakness of health care field. I do like to point out, at this time, that health care professionals should be alert with a demand on nurses to learn more about technology in the near future.
I feel frustrated and angry one evening during clinical rotation, again that instructor purposely responded to my questions with neglegence, I remember she hardly look at me, to answer my question, she either looked somewhere else or looked at some body next to me. or simply glancing over me wtih no answer, I am a minority and speak with accents, my previous education from a top university tells me this is a sign of discrimination, community college has been very dissatisfy my demand for quality education, I check into the back ground of this instructors, discover most of them either graduated from university of Pheonix or a very community level of nursing program, at this moment I do not feel I should go back that CC to complet RN training and ruin my own educational expection, a second degree BSN is in my plan, but the cost would be around $35,000 to complete, I do like to gain a PhD some day in bioEngineering PSU or U of Maryland, the issue about money put me in the thoughts of go back engineering track, how do you think, I need some encouragement to get rid of the memory of the bad feeling,the feeling of being discriminated is very bad, I speak 3 lanaguages and I did not discriminate anyone who speak only one, I grauduated from a University much harder and real, but they in this CC o nly concern my face and accents, I wonder this is the quality of CC education to produce. I am not discouraging anyone who are attending CC for education, I had three wonderful teachers in this CC who really are in my apprecaion list when I was trying to learn biology, for engineering students, the worse coursed to deal with is courses that require memorization, I leared very hard from there three retire MD instructors and passed 4 biology courses with high A, they really turned on my other part of brain circuitry, my mind held them as heroes every day. can any one help me to look at this bad experience, I would be very appreciated. thank you and whatever your view could be I can learn something.
it is time to adapt the new world now, for you too, as a nurse, as you konw the impact of diversity of culture and nationality, please remember, if other RN or MD can speak American language with accent that means you need to be able to speak at least 2 different languages, be strong and be a winner, donot be a looser and sob in your frustrations.
Go for 4 year nursing school because it provides much better nursing trainining if you are still interesting in nursing. I did ADN training with a B.S. background in a community college, was very disappointed with the quality of training from that ADN programm, most of their instructors either under- educated ( gradauted from University of Pheonix) or always projecting personal bias against students; in additon, some students mixed in the class exhibit lower than standard academic quality. For you, With education from a real university, you may not like to be de-educated from those ' educators " who know less than you do. A gpa of 2.00 from real university means good enough and reliable, , you should be confident, proud and move on to your next goal. , If you want to go for master degree, another route to do so is to take GRE, make sure you prepare well before the test, with high GRE score, you still can get in some school, which may not be in Ivy-leage, but high GRE will open a door for you. I quited that ADN program this summer, and is ready to go back graduate school, I figure, with same much effort, I rather learn real knowledge and gain a master (or PHD ) degree instead of following group panic stuggling with poor ADN training and disappointment. Does not matter what you decision may be, be proud of youself !
A couple of wow's. This is an old thread for sure, but still very relevant. The other has to do with this posters peceptions of nursing school at I guess is the community college level. I'm still hanging in, just passed the halfway point but still very engaged and enjoying the journey. The more time I spend with patients, the more I become convinced that having some years under my belt isn't a disadvantage, but much more an advantage. I relate much better to the older patients because in many ways I feel their pain (literally) as well as empathizing with their situations in a place that most folks would rather not be in. I think I do pretty well with the younger folks as well, maybe I'm just more laid back or easier to talk to. Either way, when I am in the hospital, I am a happy camper, enjoying the interactions and learning as much as I can.
And maybe that brings me to the second part, a response to the poster here. Honestly, I cant say whether its either the instructors or the student here that has the issue. But I will key in on one point. Wanting to become an RN to gain knowledge of pathophys so you can move on to bioengineering misses one big point. Please correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you are there for your own purposes and not for the patients. Lots of folks try nursing out because it is "a solid career" and it can be. But without the conscious decision that you are in it to help other people misses the point entirely. Maybe your instructors already know or sense that. Except for caring for other people, why would you want to put yourself in this type of environment ? If I'm wrong, then please respond. I'll gladly eat my own words.
Bob
Dear friend
I should honestly mention that I have been a part time CNA in a nursing home for 4 years, nursing assistant's work in nursing home is sweaty and smelly and is quite different from the work in engineering and combat zones, to me, CNAs are part of nursing team, out of 50 CNAs in this facility, only less than 10 really put their hearts into patient care, also most of my nursing classmates in RN class are there just for a better chances of future employment, majority of them never had any patient care experience. They all say they love to help people, but never even trying to volunteer ro work in any nursing facility. 4 years ago, I was a fatique soldier, returning from Iraq combat zone with severe sense of guilt ( a sign of PTSD ), my RN friend brought me into nursing home to work as a volunteer, that time while lossing my faith in everything of my life, I still remain believing that nurses are the center of upmost humanity and earn my absolute trust, however today those nursing instructors showing me the nurses are ordinary human beings who can pretend nice as angels and sustain a career just like politicians. I am disappointed with this discovery but not quitting my CNA work, my elderly friends ( my residents ) trust me with the care I provide to them, and at the same time, I realy gratify that my PTSD is gone, and the credits all go to my elderly patients, I owe my friends, and I am designing and making madical devices to help their physical therapy and recovery, with good background in medical science, I am very capable to learn the pathophysioloty I have been learning, yes I am a CNA, however can help much more than those selective RN, I do not plan to go back to that school to learn discriminating. Thank you my friend for helping my thought process.
I noticed that the nut case instructor at my school is still there after twenty years. The school apparently loves her and her methods. It is a shame that she is responsible for so many students having to go to other schools to becomes nurses. Very sick individual.
it is all about business, federal fundings to school is based on the numbers of nursing students at the beginning of the semester, the dropout of nursing students does not affect the the federal money school receivesfrom, so more students drop out at the end of curriculum, the less work instructors have to deal with, and the more money the school gets to keep, this ingenious way discovered by this kind of instructor does promote her job security and demand. any business antity absolutely love to keep them.
..shaking and afraid to speak. Then, we were told we were stupid, not worthy of doing clinicals (after doing so for a year) and that we would never EVER pass our boards.
Each day before class, I vomit or have diarrhea. My mental and physical health is at stake, as is the rest of the class. We do not have the option of another instructor. I hate to quit, but I'm on edge all of the time.
Even in the midst of writing this, I had to go deal with vomiting. Just thinking about it makes me so very sick.
What can we do? who will stand up for us? Is this sort of abuse even allowed?
I just want my old self back. No more stress.[/quote]
Tough clinical instructors pressure students think and learn, abusive ones make students anxious and fearful, this a find line between the tow types of instructors and the later should never be considered instructors, they are the shame of educational field, if they don't quit themselves, the situation will find who they are and fire them. you are not the one to go, they are the ones to leave, not you, nursing field needs you, just pick up a little courage, you be just fine.
I would love to think the way you think, age is not an issue, perhaps race is , the reality sometimes reveals different attitudes and truth against minor things like ages or races in this nursing 'education' field; I am an immigrant from East Asia 25 years ago, grew up in HI, got BS in Electrical Engineering from Penn State Univ by buring midnight oil for 5 years, then now studing RN clinical in HACC to enhence my dream of becoming bioengineer, my plan is to learn pathophysiology through the experience of RN clinical, but one of the instrutors constantly showes me cold face and responses when I need instructions from her, I feel the tension of uncertain thoughts, that thoughts of speaking with accets makes her unhappy, inl my years working in engineering field, speaking with accent is viewed as talents and intenational capacity to engineering work force, but to nursing or this particular instructor, it seems a negative mark for nursing students, I wonder what ' culturely competent care ' actually mean in this nursing teaching class, perhaps I am over sensitive to this response, perhaps I misinterpret the reaction from her to me, right now, I do find myself very disturbed by this educational experience, is it because CC's educational quality is as said a 13th grade level, or this is an arbitury problem hidden and negletible in educational institute, can I trust the future nurses taught by this kind of instructors and graduated from it. should I quit the RN clinical, I am there mainly to gain insight to find approach to design good medical devices, but this exprience really got me to think the trust on the nursing educations.
In the past several years, University of Pheonix has been under law suits for it's insufficient educational contents provided to it's students who not only could not receive the desired college level education, butr also have to suffer a drop in their self esteem.
just follow your heart, you will find solution for the undetermined equation in your mind, I have encounter same situation and decide to go for something better or higher, like -- a PhD degree in my original field.
quote " I go to work to have a life, i don't have a life so i can work"
that sounds like : I EAT TO LIVE, I don't LIVE TO EAT.
ther is a big difference between the two.
the balance within our self internal structure depends on how we think and act on family relation, personal desires and goals.
I have wondered about CC 2 year or university 4 year training in college before, I realize today that the 2 years between ADN and BSN schooling does make differences in the way you think and analyse the complexity of human disease process. 4 year schooling provides you a better preparation for complicated patient care, but 2 year CC training does not provide a solid analytical ground for critical thinking. you may not know at this time, but it does make difference in the way we look at things, analyse and respond. To do good on NCLEX , one only need to prepare for it like prepare for high school SAT.
How many patient cares have you done since graduated from Community college?
[quote=LotusRN1972;5590985]Hello My Friends,
Your assistance is needed more than ever!!!
I am a new grad straight out of school AND I landed a job in a SNF/LT/Rehab in San Diego.
The problem???
1)Well, I notice that I receive report in Tagalog (I speak English) and am constantly spoken about in the language. This is from SEASONED (15-20 years at the facility nurse(LVN's, I rarely see RN's)).
2) Patients (who are NOT Philipino) are treated with so much disregard, it is sad to see!!! They are yelled at, left in the hallways (without water, with mouths wide open= excessive thirst).I do attend to these patients my self ........
sounds like the place you are working for is a type of skilled nursing facilitiy, if so, it should have many nursing assistants available for you as RN to take advantage, some nursing assistants are bossy, rude and hiding, but some are very konwledgeable and responsible, get to know them and arrage patient care assignments to them, be strong on your attitude when you face the rude nursing assistants, most likely they would avoid the assisgnment from you if you are too soft. I really dislike to face the disparity problems in the patient care today, it seems like health care field is a play ground for some health care professionals to practice racial discrimination and persue personnal revange, while many people use a great effort to build up the tower of humanity, some narrow minded individuals hide in the back trying to degrade it. It is such a shame! You move on as a good nurse and do good as you suppose to, do not be one of those nurses. Love you and best regard to you.
Don't mean to upset nursing professionals, half of my families work in hospital as medical doctors or nurses, I truly respect every medical professional in this world. I just want to be realistic, If language profeciency is the dominate factor in medical diagosis, procedures and treatment, then the medical industries would not hire professionals who are not considered proficient in American language. I happen to know that half of M.D. working in John Hopkin Hospitals speak with accents, if language is a primary concern and can affect the quality of work, than John Hopkin would not hire them. There are reasons for hospital industry to use medical and nursing professional from different cultural background. I have a nursing background and also an bioengineer, I can see the trend of health care is to replace nursing work with technology, you are right, it does not matter how many language or what languages we are capable to speak, it would never be enough to accommodate the need in health care field. many hospitals begin to use robotic system to deliver and check medication treatment, computerized translators are also installed in patient's rooms to assist in communications, right now robot nurses are put in trial stage in hospitals in Japan, computerized medical system are heavily designed, utilized and implemented to meet the weakness of health care field. I do like to point out, at this time, that health care professionals should be alert with a demand on nurses to learn more about technology in the near future.
I feel frustrated and angry one evening during clinical rotation, again that instructor purposely responded to my questions with neglegence, I remember she hardly look at me, to answer my question, she either looked somewhere else or looked at some body next to me. or simply glancing over me wtih no answer, I am a minority and speak with accents, my previous education from a top university tells me this is a sign of discrimination, community college has been very dissatisfy my demand for quality education, I check into the back ground of this instructors, discover most of them either graduated from university of Pheonix or a very community level of nursing program, at this moment I do not feel I should go back that CC to complet RN training and ruin my own educational expection, a second degree BSN is in my plan, but the cost would be around $35,000 to complete, I do like to gain a PhD some day in bioEngineering PSU or U of Maryland, the issue about money put me in the thoughts of go back engineering track, how do you think, I need some encouragement to get rid of the memory of the bad feeling,the feeling of being discriminated is very bad, I speak 3 lanaguages and I did not discriminate anyone who speak only one, I grauduated from a University much harder and real, but they in this CC o nly concern my face and accents, I wonder this is the quality of CC education to produce. I am not discouraging anyone who are attending CC for education, I had three wonderful teachers in this CC who really are in my apprecaion list when I was trying to learn biology, for engineering students, the worse coursed to deal with is courses that require memorization, I leared very hard from there three retire MD instructors and passed 4 biology courses with high A, they really turned on my other part of brain circuitry, my mind held them as heroes every day. can any one help me to look at this bad experience, I would be very appreciated. thank you and whatever your view could be I can learn something.
it is time to adapt the new world now, for you too, as a nurse, as you konw the impact of diversity of culture and nationality, please remember, if other RN or MD can speak American language with accent that means you need to be able to speak at least 2 different languages, be strong and be a winner, donot be a looser and sob in your frustrations.
Go for 4 year nursing school because it provides much better nursing trainining if you are still interesting in nursing. I did ADN training with a B.S. background in a community college, was very disappointed with the quality of training from that ADN programm, most of their instructors either under- educated ( gradauted from University of Pheonix) or always projecting personal bias against students; in additon, some students mixed in the class exhibit lower than standard academic quality. For you, With education from a real university, you may not like to be de-educated from those ' educators " who know less than you do. A gpa of 2.00 from real university means good enough and reliable,
, you should be confident, proud and move on to your next goal. 
, If you want to go for master degree, another route to do so is to take GRE, make sure you prepare well before the test, with high GRE score, you still can get in some school, which may not be in Ivy-leage, but high GRE will open a door for you. I quited that ADN program this summer, and is ready to go back graduate school, I figure, with same much effort, I rather learn real knowledge and gain a master (or PHD ) degree instead of following group panic stuggling with poor ADN training and disappointment. Does not matter what you decision may be, be proud of youself ! 
I should honestly mention that I have been a part time CNA in a nursing home for 4 years, nursing assistant's work in nursing home is sweaty and smelly and is quite different from the work in engineering and combat zones, to me, CNAs are part of nursing team, out of 50 CNAs in this facility, only less than 10 really put their hearts into patient care, also most of my nursing classmates in RN class are there just for a better chances of future employment, majority of them never had any patient care experience. They all say they love to help people, but never even trying to volunteer ro work in any nursing facility. 4 years ago, I was a fatique soldier, returning from Iraq combat zone with severe sense of guilt ( a sign of PTSD ), my RN friend brought me into nursing home to work as a volunteer, that time while lossing my faith in everything of my life, I still remain believing that nurses are the center of upmost humanity and earn my absolute trust, however today those nursing instructors showing me the nurses are ordinary human beings who can pretend nice as angels and sustain a career just like politicians. I am disappointed with this discovery but not quitting my CNA work, my elderly friends ( my residents ) trust me with the care I provide to them, and at the same time, I realy gratify that my PTSD is gone, and the credits all go to my elderly patients, I owe my friends, and I am designing and making madical devices to help their physical therapy and recovery, with good background in medical science, I am very capable to learn the pathophysioloty I have been learning, yes I am a CNA, however can help much more than those selective RN, I do not plan to go back to that school to learn discriminating. Thank you my friend for helping my thought process.
it is all about business, federal fundings to school is based on the numbers of nursing students at the beginning of the semester, the dropout of nursing students does not affect the the federal money school receivesfrom, so more students drop out at the end of curriculum, the less work instructors have to deal with, and the more money the school gets to keep, this ingenious way discovered by this kind of instructor does promote her job security and demand. any business antity absolutely love to keep them.
..shaking and afraid to speak. Then, we were told we were stupid, not worthy of doing clinicals (after doing so for a year) and that we would never EVER pass our boards.
Each day before class, I vomit or have diarrhea. My mental and physical health is at stake, as is the rest of the class. We do not have the option of another instructor. I hate to quit, but I'm on edge all of the time.
Even in the midst of writing this, I had to go deal with vomiting. Just thinking about it makes me so very sick.
What can we do? who will stand up for us? Is this sort of abuse even allowed?
I just want my old self back. No more stress.[/quote]
Tough clinical instructors pressure students think and learn, abusive ones make students anxious and fearful, this a find line between the tow types of instructors and the later should never be considered instructors, they are the shame of educational field, if they don't quit themselves, the situation will find who they are and fire them. you are not the one to go, they are the ones to leave, not you, nursing field needs you, just pick up a little courage, you be just fine.
I would love to think the way you think, age is not an issue, perhaps race is , the reality sometimes reveals different attitudes and truth against minor things like ages or races in this nursing 'education' field; I am an immigrant from East Asia 25 years ago, grew up in HI, got BS in Electrical Engineering from Penn State Univ by buring midnight oil for 5 years, then now studing RN clinical in HACC to enhence my dream of becoming bioengineer, my plan is to learn pathophysiology through the experience of RN clinical, but one of the instrutors constantly showes me cold face and responses when I need instructions from her, I feel the tension of uncertain thoughts, that thoughts of speaking with accets makes her unhappy, inl my years working in engineering field, speaking with accent is viewed as talents and intenational capacity to engineering work force, but to nursing or this particular instructor, it seems a negative mark for nursing students, I wonder what ' culturely competent care ' actually mean in this nursing teaching class, perhaps I am over sensitive to this response, perhaps I misinterpret the reaction from her to me, right now, I do find myself very disturbed by this educational experience, is it because CC's educational quality is as said a 13th grade level, or this is an arbitury problem hidden and negletible in educational institute, can I trust the future nurses taught by this kind of instructors and graduated from it. should I quit the RN clinical, I am there mainly to gain insight to find approach to design good medical devices, but this exprience really got me to think the trust on the nursing educations.
In the past several years, University of Pheonix has been under law suits for it's insufficient educational contents provided to it's students who not only could not receive the desired college level education, butr also have to suffer a drop in their self esteem.
I heard high NLEX pass rate of c.c.' ADNs can be influced by a very effective NCLEX review hired and conducted by some one who knows Nclex inside out.
just follow your heart, you will find solution for the undetermined equation in your mind, I have encounter same situation and decide to go for something better or higher, like -- a PhD degree in my original field.
