1. I wish that Nursing school could be done at a slower pace, part-time so that we could actually devote time to memorizing the material rather than cramming it in. From what I can tell, the rule that we must complete the ADN in 3 years is that it
would lower the schools rates on paper for what % graduate in that amount of time. I personally, have responsibilities outside of nursing school. I am a full-time mom first, and a nursing student second. I have gotten Straight-As in all college
course work up until this point, but before clinical courses began I was able to devote actual time to studying. The cramming and the stress are utterly unnecessary to the learning process. I would rather have the option of slowing down to memorize the material, even if takes an extra couple of years to get through the program.
2. Why is it that nursing school must grade entirely on NCLEX-style questions that cannot be fully prepared for?
Of course it matters that we pass the NCLEX, but for many that is not the final goal. If nobody will get an "A", and the entire class ends up just hoping to pass, it hurts our ability to transfer into higher level programs later. How does it benefit the image of nurses as highly educated professionals to keep them out of graduate school programs or make their GPAs less competitive? I know that many schools receive funding based on their NCLEX pass rates, but this should NOT be used to justify these grading methods. It harms more students than it helps, especially those with higher educational goals than just getting through the NCLEX.
3. The lectures and the textbook readings should at least moderately relate to what we are tested on. If we are presented with a bunch of NCLEX-style questions, and we were not actually taught that material...do not say something insulting like "Use your critical thinking". Every one of us uses critical thinking, or we would not have made it into the program to begin with. Nursing students are generally adults, most of whom have had prior careers, and we do not benefit from being talked down to. You may mean well, and you may have convinced yourself that this is educationally necessary. Let me assure you that these tactics are insulting, reminiscent of basic training, and not indicative of our learning potentials.
Base your grading on what you have actually taught, not on the NCLEX itself. I don't care about your school's exam %. I do care that I be graded on the material given, and rewarded for effort. It seems to me that schools are so desperate to keep their NCLEX funding that they weed out the students in Fundamentals who aren't already good at this test style.
Those of us who had the highest test scores in the class were the ones who figured out early to focus on NCLEX practice books more than on the assigned reading material. Many of these questions can be answered without memorizing the real material, and that should scare patients. When did the nursing process itself become more important than learning how to heal, and not kill people? It is just ridiculous.
I can do NCLEX practice tests at home in my spare time. That is not what I am paying for.
4. If your school has the audacity to advertise the program to the general scholastic population as a regular major, then it should be an entry level program. Those of us who do not have a decade of CNA experience should not be expected to know how to do things before you teach them. I don't want to watch a short video made in the 1970s and then be expected to perform a procedure. Give a demonstration, and adequate practice time in lab. Remember that we waited on long lists and maintained perfect grades in our prerequisites to get into these programs.
5. Focus on educating us, not on weeding out the perceived undesirables. We lost several people from our Fundamentals class who would have made wonderful nurses. We have kept a few of the less empathetic souls however. society wants empathetic, intellectual, nurturing nurses. From what I have witnessed, those are the students who mostly drop out. The hardened students, and the ones who care only to pass (regardless of GPA) are the ones who make it. Who does that actually benefit?
6. I love patient care, and clinical :heartbeat.
I loved my clinical instructor because she was kind. :heartbeat
Others were not so lucky. I would have a hard time actually respecting a clinical
instructor who was otherwise. Respect students if you want them to respect you on more than a superficial level.
7. I hate long lectures where the professor just reads directly off a Powerpoint first thing in th morning. That is pretty much wasted study time. I can read a Powerpoint online, as I have in many other classes. If you are not going to actually tell us what we need to memorize, and what will be on the exam, there is little reason to wake up at 6am to go to lecture every day. Everything I learned in lecture could have been taught as an online course. Only clinical and lab required attendance. It is hard as an adult student who has taken numerous online classes to not notice that this could be done much more efficiently. In nursing school, efficiency is everything.
8. It is substantially more stressful to take 9 credit courses than 3 credit courses. Why do the ADN programs do this? If you just need to retake a 3 credit course, that is reasonably doable. Too many people in my program have had to repeat the entire 9 credits. It makes me wish that I had chosen to go directly into a BSN, even though my school has a 2+2 transfer agreement. 3 credit courses would have been substantially less stressful for me.
SweetNSassyRN2B
94 Posts
For craps sake... it's a VENT post! Some posters need to get off their high horses and think before posting. OP, I agree with many of your points.