Am I over reacting?

lovingtheunloved, ASN, RN · Apr 25, 2007

It's possible to get an A with a more rigid professor. Or an F, it depends on how hard you work. I tend to get higher grades from harder teachers, because I'm the type that needs pressure.

catzy5 · Apr 25, 2007

I have been taking Eng Comp 1 at my local cc and the semester is coming to an end (Yippie). I have been doing great so far and my grade in Eng is an A; however, my professor (who is great by the way) is pretty laid back and has let us skip on completing a research paper and is not that demanding of us. My fear is that I have been missing some vital info that is going to bite me in the butt later. Am I just over reacting or what? I have a choice of taking eng II with his wife who is equally laid back and easy going or taking an eng II honors class. If I take the honors class I may end up with a professor that is much more demanding. Is it possible to get an A with an easy professor and C with a more rigid professor?

your grade can certainly hinge on the professor. At this point though you pretty much have english down from high school, ya there are a few things but your going to be a nurse not an English teacher I wouldn't worry about it. If you were skating through Micro or AP I might consider it a delima but I know I will probably get back lash from saying this but its "just" English.

MikeyJ, RN · Apr 26, 2007

You sound like you a pretty intelligent individual. I seriously wouldn't worry too much about "getting off easy" in your Eng. I class.

However, I personally love English and feel it is necessary to have the ability to write proper research papers, thus I ended up taking a Research Writing class (which was Eng. 102 at the first college I attended). I think having a solid foundation in research writing will help a student out a great deal, and I would recommend perhaps taking such a class if one is offered at your school.

Just my 0.02 though.

WDWpixieRN, RN · Apr 27, 2007

Your writing is concise, spelled correctly, and punctuated pretty decently. I took regular Comp I with a "very interesting" instructor who had us just do a lot of introspective type of writing....and the more colorful and full of descriptive language it contained, the better.

Several semesters later, I took the honors comp II. I got an "A". I also had the most awesome instructor on the campus. I was in my mid-40's and many, many moons out of high school.

I'd take the honors section if it will help you fulfill an honors requirement and not worry about it. You will be taught what you need to know in that class and probably do awesome!!

DesertRain · Apr 27, 2007

English is my favorite and best subject ever. However, I wouldn't even worry about it. Consider it a blessing. If your A&P Professor decides that he's going to skip out an entire system, then that's a problem. Missing out on a paper in English is absolutely not going to affect your nursing career.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Apr 28, 2007

curlysue82. . .since you asked. . .yes, you are over reacting. you are going to have plenty of opportunities to write research papers in other classes. the difference in doing one for english comp is that the instructor is going to focus on the grammar, organization and formatting. in other classes the actual content and references are going to get a good going over.

you ask, is it possible to get an a with an easy professor and c with a more rigid professor? i don't know how long you've been in school, but maybe it's time to point something out that you haven't considered before. grading is almost 99.9% subjective (of or resulting from the feelings or temperament of the person, rather than the attributes of the object thought of; determined by and emphasizing the ideas, thoughts, feelings of the artist, writer or speaker). you will be told in the first days of nursing school that you need to be non-judgmental toward all patients. easy to say; hard to do sometimes because our minds have been filled with prejudices since the day we were born. teachers struggle with the same quest for objectivity and non-judgmentality. however, we are all human beings subject to all those prejudices we have been exposed to whether we want to acknowledge them or not. some people are better at recognizing and squelching them; some aren't. are you willing to play russian roulette for a grade? you can always open a book, access the internet, or attend a lecture and learn on your own. taking a class and getting a grade is something you absolutely have to do in our social system to get the job and career you want. why make it more painful for yourself if you don't have to? believe me, i can tell you after 31 years as a nurse that whatever you didn't learn in a formal class you will learn on your years at a job. and no classroom is ever going to prepare you anywhere close to 100% of what you are going to experience as a nurse on the job. i would say that probably more than 50% of your learning in nursing is going to occur after you are out of school and working at a nursing job.

curlysue82 · Apr 29, 2007

Thank you guys for all the great responses! I guess this whole school thing is going to take a little getting use to. It's like I have this part of me second guessing myself. No matter how good a grade I get I feel I could have always done better. No matter how while I know a subject I feel I don't quite know enough. I am sure there will be a professor I don't see eye to eye with but all I can do is give 110% and hope that gets me the grade I need and if not - well I tried my best.

curlysue82 · Apr 29, 2007

I have been working on my last eng paper for the semester and the instructions ask us to use MLA parathetic documentaion. We where suppose to go over this when we did our research paper but since we skipped that paper we haven't. Professor did say that we could skip that part on this next paper but I am curious; what is it?

CritterLover, BSN, RN · Apr 29, 2007

i have been working on my last eng paper for the semester and the instructions ask us to use mla parathetic documentaion. we where suppose to go over this when we did our research paper but since we skipped that paper we haven't. professor did say that we could skip that part on this next paper but i am curious; what is it?

i think you are referring to "mla parenthetical documentation." it is a way to cite references in the text of your paper. for example, if you were to write somthing like "ninty percent of all nurses are female," you would put in parentheses after the statement the source for this "fact" (yes, i know that isn't true; i was just grasping for an example :) ). i'm not sure how mla wants this done, though.

it probably isn't any great loss -- nursing school is going to require you to use apa format, anyway, and the two are pretty different. learning mla first will just distract you when you have to use apa.

(mla = modern languaage association; apa = american psychological association)

curlysue82 · Apr 29, 2007

Great! Now I can get this paper over and done with and be one step closer to becoming a nurse

WDWpixieRN, RN · Apr 29, 2007

Head to your local Borders or Barnes and Noble and look this up in their books. Or maybe even your local public library.

We had a great reference book we used to use for formal writing.

Good luck!!