Having to take A&P over again????

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Hi all. I am (or was) a Fall 2014 Nursing hopeful, until I just got some not so good and irritating news. Just a little background. I already have BS in a different field and was on the fence for a while with what I really wanted to do, but I finally decided that I wanted to be a nurse. I figured I would go for my ASN at my local college. So, I registered and noticed the pre-reqs for getting into the program.

I saw (or thought) that I only needed Microbiology and lab, college algebra, psychology, and A&P 1 and Lab. I already took and passed the lecture A&P 1 but I withdrew from the lab, so I figured that I would only need the lab portion of it and I would hopefully be set for Fall 2014 entry (app deadline is May 14, 2014). After all my credits from the University and the college transferred over, my A&P was not counted. I immediately contacted my advisor who told me that because this particular college's A&P courses are integrated and interrelated, they are combined for one comprehensive grade, meaning I HAVE to take them together. Has anyone ever heard of that?? Even though they may be interrelated, it's essentially the same course, right? Why would it make a difference?

A&P was a very difficult class for me and I passed through many blood, sweat and tears. This was a class that had me wanting to crawl up and cry a lot which is why I withdrew from the lab, it was just too much. Any advice on how to handle this? Thanks in advance.

Ours counted as two grades. Lecture was worth 3 credits an lab was worth 1.

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The only reason why I thought it was odd is because if you take for example lecture in the fall and lab in the spring (which this university allowed) then it would make it more difficult in my opinion. You could choose to do that if you couldn't fit it into your schedule. I obviously know that some schools offer it as two separate grades and others as one complete grade.

Specializes in Psychiatry.

At my school, it wouldn't be possible to do that. Even though lecture and lab were two separate courses, you are required to take them together. If you withdrew from lab, you would automatically be withdrawn from lecture and vice versa.

Same situation! My first day of retaking a class I already got an A in is today :/

Yeah, you all are right. I guess it could go a little smoother since I already know what to expect, but my gosh it was like the world had been lifted off my shoulders when that class was over. I've never taken a class so hard in all my school career, high school included.

And octobersongs, i'd be more aggravated in your situation as I didn't get an A the first time around, but I'm going to try this time. Is that why this is seen as a "weeding out" class, because it's so difficult? You mean the actually nursing courses are more easy than A&P?

I'm taking it again, not because I didn't pass, but because it's been more than five years since I last took it! I'm actually glad to refresh though- its such an important class.

I didn't know you were allowed to take the lecture without the lab!

It's probably a good think for you to take the lab, though. You learn so much!

Lol.... I feel your pain, A&P Lecture put me through a whole range of emotions. I passed it and Lab with an "A"..... but I worked my butt off.

Our school allows you to take them separately. I know because I asked my lab instructor when lecture had me wanting to crawl up in a hole and cry :-) I literally quit that class several times in my mind when I was up at midnight trying to tackle a mountain of HW, knowing I had to be at work at 7:00 A.M the next morning. Thankfully I never actually quit.

Specializes in Emergency Department.

In all the schools that I have gone to, the anatomy and physiology courses have labs that had separate sections from the lecture. The reason for that is you could put a lot more people in a lecture hall than you can fit in a lab room. If you are registered for the lecture, you were required to also register for one of the lab sections. I think the trend now is that they make you register for a lab section and then they automatically register you for the accompanying lecture session. It's all based on how many students they can fit per lab section. The corollary to that course is that if you withdraw from one section – lab or lecture, you are automatically withdrawn from both.

The Junior college that I first went to had combined/integrated anatomy and physiology courses. You have to take all three courses consecutively in order to complete your education in anatomy and physiology. The current school that I go to does the same thing, however, we are on the semester system so they do it over to semesters instead of three quarters. Regardless of how they do it, they take your grades from your anatomy and physiology classes and combine them to come up with your GPA for those courses. In other words if you got an A in anatomy and a B in physiology, they would combine those courses. If you got an A in A & P 1 and B in A & P 2, they would do the same thing and you would simply get the average of both grades.

Personally, I prefer the integrated anatomy and physiology courses because then you learn not only the anatomy, you also learn what they do, how they do it, and how it interrelates to other body systems.

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