Just finished my 2nd semester and failed along with many others. There were many discrepancies in my program that are listed in my letter to the chairperson of the Nursing department. Since our professors set us up for failure through BS education and lies I decided to throw them both under the bus. Do we stand a chance for our grade to be appealed? Most of us are 1-4 points within a passing grade. Those that did pass were just over that line. Professor X is notorious for listed reasons around our program (even those who have not had her as a professor) and outside of the school from nurses we have run into on clinical sites. And Professor Y lied to us to hurt our grades. 12 students agreed to allow me to CC them to state the facts are true, 3 students BCC’d, and a few others to remain anonymous. Thoughts?
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Professor E (chairperson),
I recently finished the 2nd semester (Maternity and Psychiatric Nursing Care - Nur 212) and have some deep concerns about the fairness of the program. I, and the students CC’d in this email* (as well as additional unnamed students who fear retaliation if they participate) feel it is important to raise certain concerns for the sake of our careers, our experience in (school name here), and the experience of future students. Included in this group are students who passed the course, as well as students who did not pass. All of us have the same concerns regardless of the outcome of our grades.
Overall, we believe that the class was not set up to allow students to succeed in a meaningful way due to the way the coursework was presented, taught, and tested. In addition, we don’t feel that we have been prepared to pass the course exams, as the course strategy was often “off-book,” non-linear, and often incomprehensible. This was not the experience of other students who were taught by other professors, as we learned after speaking with evening class students who do not report experiencing the same level of challenge with their professor. Additionally, to our knowledge, they had a much higher pass-rate than our class. We would thus request your review of the following points:
- We were underprepared and immediately behind the curve at the beginning of the semester because we were told we would be given an intense reading assignment over the Summer of 2021 that would prepare us for the Maternal and Newborn Nursing course. This reading was never distributed to the class.
- Professor X’ exams were on an advanced level of Nursing that was unrealistic, considering both our current level of critical knowledge and the mandatory (and expensive) prep material we purchased, which inadequately prepared us to pass these exams regardless of the time and effort spent in study.
- Professor X taught on the assumption that we were already educated in certain areas of Fundamentals of Nursing--information that we had never learned in the previous semester.
- Professor X stated she disagreed with the material in the required textbook. As dense as our coursework already is, this only made the experience more confusing, forced us to pursue further research for information she considered accurate, and unnecessarily complicated our curriculum.
- Professor X was either late to respond to student emails, or they were ignored. Personally, I asked for help on study strategy for success on the final exam 9 days in advance, and received a reply 48 hours before finals—far too late to be of any help.
- Professor Y, prior to her exams, inaccurately told us that we should focus on medication classes--not medication names. In fact, we were questioned on the exam for medication names. This cost us further points and significantly impacted our grade in the course. Upon confrontation with this discrepancy, Professor Y agreed that she had given us a false study tip, but was unwilling to remediate the situation, either by allowing us to retake the exam or to remediate that particular grade.
• - Prior to the final exam, Professor Y downplayed the difficulty of her exam, stating that her portion was ‘mild’ and that she recycles her questions from previous exams. Upon sitting for the test, we found it to be challenging and that the basic review of former material and questions that we had done in preparation left us unprepared. A far more in- depth focus on the material would have been required in order to successfully pass the test.
In sum, we believe your review of the course and our grades is in order. We invite you to have a conversation with us to discuss this experience, and to figure out the best way to move forward in a fair and equitable way. We strongly believe that many students who did not pass this course have fairly earned the right to move on to their next semester without repeating this set of classes – especially given the high costs (finances, time, personal sacrifice) associated with taking the class again.
Considering this experience, you can understand how dispirited many of us are—some even to the point of rethinking their future in this school, if not this career. Given that we were only allowed two on-site clinical experiences due to the pandemic, we also believe that consideration should be made for the lack of on-site educational benefits of an applied science.
We are eager to hear your thoughts on these matters. Please let us know your
availability to speak with us as a group. Since the next semester begins on January 28th, and we must have our plans in order well before then, we would appreciate an honest reply as soon as possible.
Thank you for your time and consideration. We would not have come forward if we didn’t truly believe we had a case.
Best regards,
My Name | Phone Number
*Please note: CC’d students have given me permission to include them in this letter with agreeance that the follow facts stated are true.
I will summarize and reply to all of your posts with this:
1. I wanted my kids to know they had the freedom to go to college or not, I just wanted them to be productive adults. The overt and subliminal programming in school was stronger than that, as evidenced by my daughter who is paying for random classes (undeclared major) with zero direction.
2. Education can be a waste of money when you have no direction. Students racking up student loans taking English 100 and theatre 102 contributes extremely little to themselves as a person and absolutely nothing to society.
3. And this is the absolute most important point.. Going to college is far from the only way to contribute to ones community, to improve oneself, and to make the world a better place. Going to college just to check a box, especially given todays tuition, is an utter travesty and it is ruining our children's financial future.
Kids who are in situations like my daughter should absolutely not be going to college right now. Go live life, find purpose and direction, find a passion, THEN go do it. Any other way is foolish.
There is a local school system that is much more rural and I have gone to some basketball games there. They still have a real-life shop class. They still have an active FFA that actually learns how to farm. Their motto is "enroll, enlist, employ" and they have monitors showing past graduates and where they are either working, serving, or going to college. THAT is how high school should be, but most high schools (especially in higher population areas) present college as the ONLY option. It's not "are you going to college" (which carries a significantly negative connotation) it's "where are you going to college"..
Lastly, you made some assumptions about me. I came from an upper middle class family and graduated high school with honors. I absolutely could have gone to college, but I had a different path at that point in my life. I started back for my bachelors degree at 30..
The overt and subliminal programming in school was stronger than that, as evidenced by my daughter who is paying for random classes (undeclared major) with zero direction.
If it is any comfort you she will need to declare her major during or after sophomore year. This is where I get confused:
22 minutes ago, FiremedicMike said:
I wanted my kids to know they had the freedom to go to college or not,
23 minutes ago, FiremedicMike said:
Kids who are in situations like my daughter should absolutely not be going to college right now. Go live life, find purpose and direction, find a passion, THEN go do it. Any other way is foolish.
4 minutes ago, FiremedicMike said:
Students racking up student loans taking English 100 and theatre 102 contributes extremely little to themselves as a person and absolutely nothing to society.
English 100 is a course that is described as how to write "to persuade" and "develop your ideas". It is very important and required for any college degree. I am sure you had to take it. . I don't know about Theatre 102 but I would assume it helps some one develop confidence...similar to a Speech course but correct me if I am wrong.
7 minutes ago, FiremedicMike said:
They still have a real-life shop class. They still have an active FFA that actually learns how to farm. Their motto is "enroll, enlist, employ" and they have monitors showing past graduates and where they are either working, serving, or going to college. THAT is how high school should be, but most high schools (especially in higher population areas) present college as the ONLY option.
I get that you are disappointed that your whole high school population doesn't go for shop class, FFA and other non college specialties. BTW where I live, we have the BEST ag program at our CC the state and our students are readily recruited to the U of I. Farming is NOW a science and our students learn to move on crop turnover and fertilizer (including the effect on river, ponds fertilizer runoff) , fixing farm machinery, care of animals, livestock judging, basic horticulture and crop production and so much more.
32 minutes ago, FiremedicMike said:
Their motto is "enroll, enlist, employ" and they have monitors showing past graduates and where they are either working, serving, or going to college.
Please elaborate on this...are you meaning the 'armed services'?
While you disagree with me I am very positive that education is the future., ..In the 1930s. it was hoped that children would complete the 8th grade. Now we have so much more to learn about the world. In fact every job application asks about education. Why handicap your daughter and aren't you going to college now? Please help her pick out courses that will benefit in the future! Get ahold of her catalog or look at the college's website.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry, I do not now nor will I ever agree that everyone must attend college to improve themselves and/or the community around them.
We're just going to have to agree to disagree. I'm sorry, I do not now nor will I ever agree that everyone must attend college to improve themselves and/or the community around them.
I agree with you. The world only needs only so many MBAs, social workers, lawyers, etc. Someone still has to be a plumber, electrician, lay roadways, set steel for buildings, etc. Those things don't happen without human hands attached to individuals who are intelligent, and useful, in a different way. Those vocations that I mentioned may take college courses and some get associates, but they by no means require a Bachelors, Masters, or higher, degree
Higher education used to be an option. It still really is, but it's not presented that way.
I am a parent of 3 kids who have graduated high school in the last 6 years. To them, college is absolutely mandatory. I have one daughter who's plugging away at gen-ED classes (I.e. wasting money) in college despite having no career direction at all. Primary education in America DRILLS into our kids that the MUST go to college or they will fail at life.
I made it abundantly clear as a parent that they were free to live their life, as long as they become a productive adult, I don't care if they go to college or not, but the programming at school was more powerful.
I disappointed some people. I ended up in your daughter's shoes in some ways. I made expensive mistakes. Not one time but a few times. I had a full scholarship in computer science when I completed HS. Learning computer languages, C++, HTML, logic, learning how to code, and others came easy to me. I don't think those were easy. Looking back, I found joy in figuring things out. I even learned how to repair hardware. In HS, I was in electronics. I mixed with other students who were programmers and engineers. Some of my classmates and I were allowed to stay with them. I was stubborn. My teachers groomed me to learn the English language. My action was louder. I ditched to attend this class. I only stayed for my attendance. I had no idea that it could open a good door for me.
Life has its own joke on me. I'm here in the nation where the English language is a de facto language and learning it. I realized then I threw that opportunity away. The guy I went to school with works in one of the biggest tech companies and is making a lot of dough. I'm not jealous of his income. At some point in my life, I wished I was a little mature. I had no idea how fortunate I was for having a full scholarship. I wouldn't own a student loan today. However, I did something nice for my siblings and had fun while I was out of college. I learned some business/trade skills. I didn't listen to those wise heads. I could actually finish that program if I didn't make excuses.
Just writing to say the semester started today. I got VERY LUCKY to get a professor change 3 days before the semester started. And we just did a class vote to take our exams online. This professor actually has structure to her course and gave us an actual intro whereas my last professor did not and everything was confusing.
Me, and all the others that failed were truly given an uppercut punch to the stomach to make us have to repeat this course.
The silver lining in all of this is that I now go to the gym every single day and lift heavy a** weights just to make this situation bearable. I’ve also started running. I feel angry, and cheated.
Me, and all the others that failed were truly given an uppercut punch to the stomach to make us have to repeat this course.
I can understand how you, and your classmates, would think this. However, you should also consider yourselves fortunate that you were not only allowed to retake the course, but that you were able to take it the next semester.
As a tall guy - my low back is completely out of pain from training in the gym again. It only took a week to rehab myself. The long student hours spent sitting in a chair and withering away really took a toll on my mental and physical health. It feels great to be back. When I finish NCLEX and start working I bet I’ll be training (I was a personal trainer for 7 years) other nurses to protect their backs as well.
Yesterday in class we had a professor fill in to play some practicum skills videos for the class and she literally said to us - "I don't know if I should say this...some of you may know what I'm talking about....look at this as a blessing that your professor was switched."
As a tall guy - my low back is completely out of pain from training in the gym again. It only took a week to rehab myself. The long student hours spent sitting in a chair and withering away really took a toll on my mental and physical health. It feels great to be back. When I finish NCLEX and start working I bet I’ll be training (I was a personal trainer for 7 years) other nurses to protect their backs as well.
On 2/4/2022 at 5:50 AM, StudentGamerAthlete said:
Yesterday in class we had a professor fill in to play some practicum skills videos for the class and she literally said to us - "I don't know if I should say this...some of you may know what I'm talking about....look at this as a blessing that your professor was switched."
I HATE IT HERE!
Whoever you're, keep up the good work. You do need to work in your acting.
FiremedicMike, BSN, RN, EMT-P
596 Posts
I will summarize and reply to all of your posts with this:
1. I wanted my kids to know they had the freedom to go to college or not, I just wanted them to be productive adults. The overt and subliminal programming in school was stronger than that, as evidenced by my daughter who is paying for random classes (undeclared major) with zero direction.
2. Education can be a waste of money when you have no direction. Students racking up student loans taking English 100 and theatre 102 contributes extremely little to themselves as a person and absolutely nothing to society.
3. And this is the absolute most important point.. Going to college is far from the only way to contribute to ones community, to improve oneself, and to make the world a better place. Going to college just to check a box, especially given todays tuition, is an utter travesty and it is ruining our children's financial future.
Kids who are in situations like my daughter should absolutely not be going to college right now. Go live life, find purpose and direction, find a passion, THEN go do it. Any other way is foolish.
There is a local school system that is much more rural and I have gone to some basketball games there. They still have a real-life shop class. They still have an active FFA that actually learns how to farm. Their motto is "enroll, enlist, employ" and they have monitors showing past graduates and where they are either working, serving, or going to college. THAT is how high school should be, but most high schools (especially in higher population areas) present college as the ONLY option. It's not "are you going to college" (which carries a significantly negative connotation) it's "where are you going to college"..
Lastly, you made some assumptions about me. I came from an upper middle class family and graduated high school with honors. I absolutely could have gone to college, but I had a different path at that point in my life. I started back for my bachelors degree at 30..