I've been really put off my nursing school lately. I'm in an Accelerated BSN program. The classes and lecture instructors are disorganized which puts in a bad position when studying for exams and more importantly the NCLX. The assignments are badly written. So bad that when our clinical instructors are required to grade them, they don't know what to do. No one seems to know what is expected and we have such a short time in school!
I know I'm gripping but is there anyone who hates their school. I love nursing and the patients I get to take care of, but this nursing school seems to torture it's students by requiring half of them to commute over 80 miles one way without rotating for the whole year, giving inadequate lectures, and providing info the night before a test. I don't feel like this school is preparing me to be a nurse. In fact, I asked a clinical instructor about this situation and she said that not all nursing schools are like this. She views this program as a way to buy a degree because they aren't teaching us effectively. Her advice: to basically do what they tell me to do and get out of here...I think that's the awful truth.
If anyone has any words of encouragement, please post. I'm about to pull my hair out in frustration.
I am at Hinds Community College in Jackson. The instructors tell us all the time that we are the best. I have heard from some nurses in the hospital also that Hinds is a really good school. I don't really care one way or the other, I'm just ready to be done with it. Before I found this website I thought Hinds was different from any other school, just being so much harder. But it turns out they are just like the rest i suppose. If you can graduate from a nursing program and pass NCLEX you're gonna be a good nurse no matter what school you went to.
I honestly didn't think anyone liked their nursing school, I guess. I started out at a private, small, all women's school on the east coast. Then I transferred to a public university in california because they offered an Accelerated BSN.
Our class was only the second group to go through the program, so it was hopelessly disorganized, and last minute. A few times we had no clinical instructor until the day or two before the rotation began.
I was very frustrated by many aspects of our program, but I got a BSN in 15 months, so I guess it was good for something!
Mississippi University for Women!! I absolutly love it. There are times when i could point out disorganization, In my opinion it kind of weeds out those who can't adapt to a situation or overcome a small obstacle. They have NEVER changed an answer on our test even when there were people challenging them. All of our instructors have a minimum of 15 yrs hospital experience....some have been in nursing for over 40 years. They can even answer questions about other instructors lectures or clinical requirements. They have thier stuff together. The "W" has had an accredited nursing program for decades....If you are anywhere close to MS i would recomend this school. They have ADN, RN-BSN, BSN, and MSN/practitioner programs....brand new state of the art facilities and all local clinicals...I have never driven over 30 miles to clinicals. They are genorous with scholarships also...i get a 4k refund every semester!! I only came in with a 3.7 & a 22ACT
OMG! sounds just like my nursing school. :) Everyone told me how disorganized they were before I entered...of course, I didn't believe them. It is by the grace of god I survived the whole thing.
We had a few awesome teachers, but the majority, anytime you asked them anything, they would say look it up in your book. The school raised the exit exam to 900 ...a yr into our program...but failed to raise their teaching standards too. Needless to say there are still 13 of us struggling to get pass the exit and get on with our lives due to this. They should of been preparing us for this exit exam from day one of nursing school...
My personal feelings on the 2 yrs of my nursing program was that I basically taught myself...other than attending lectures...which most of the time were useless...I was on my own...(just me and the books)...I don't know if that was due to my age and they figured I had it together or what. Yeah!right..
I've been really put off my nursing school lately. I'm in an accelerated BSN program. The classes and lecture instructors are disorganized which puts in a bad position when studying for exams and more importantly the NCLX. The assignments are badly written. So bad that when our clinical instructors are required to grade them, they don't know what to do. No one seems to know what is expected and we have such a short time in school!
I know I'm gripping but is there anyone who hates their school. I love nursing and the patients I get to take care of, but this nursing school seems to torture it's students by requiring half of them to commute over 80 miles one way without rotating for the whole year, giving inadequate lectures, and providing info the night before a test. I don't feel like this school is preparing me to be a nurse. In fact, I asked a clinical instructor about this situation and she said that not all nursing schools are like this. She views this program as a way to buy a degree because they aren't teaching us effectively. Her advice: to basically do what they tell me to do and get out of here...I think that's the awful truth.
If anyone has any words of encouragement, please post. I'm about to pull my hair out in frustration.
Gail
I can see what you mean, and I often also feel that school does not prepare us for the real job world. Now that I am close to graduating, I see that school/clinicals prepared us for the theory and some of the physical duties we would need to perform, but it will not really prepare you totally for the first job you will take. This really hit home with me when I did a summer nurse externship--the first two nights I went home and cried my eyes out, feeling like there was no way I could ever do it and I was just too stoopid or incompetent to be a nurse. But I went back, kept at it, and guess what? After learning about the facility, the facility policies and procedures, the people/management/chain of command at the facility, I left the externship feeling like I could start working there and be GOOD at it.
Point is, lots of professions don't fully prepare you in school, much of it you learn on the job. I think as RN's, school is preparing us for entry to pratice. We're not expected to come out of school and be seasoned RNs. Many of the skills I learned to function during the externship were specific to THAT facility and THAT unit, and were not things I could use in clinicals or other facilities. A lot of being comfortable at your first job will be leaning where things are, learning who to talk to, figuring out what doc to call, learning the unit policies and procedures for everything you do(stuff like flushing a line or d/c'ing a foley can have different policies at different jobs), and learning who you can go to as a resource.
But I don't think it's just us--my husband is a cop, and he tells me all the time how his Criminal Justice BS and the Police Academy had nothing to do with what he actually does on the job.
I am. The teachers are great, but we don't have supplies and can't get into the lab to practice so we are practicing on patients which I don't like. The teachers have been great and complained to the dean many times. Still, nothing has been done.
I've been really put off my nursing school lately. I'm in an accelerated BSN program. The classes and lecture instructors are disorganized which puts in a bad position when studying for exams and more importantly the NCLX. The assignments are badly written. So bad that when our clinical instructors are required to grade them, they don't know what to do. No one seems to know what is expected and we have such a short time in school!
I know I'm gripping but is there anyone who hates their school. I love nursing and the patients I get to take care of, but this nursing school seems to torture it's students by requiring half of them to commute over 80 miles one way without rotating for the whole year, giving inadequate lectures, and providing info the night before a test. I don't feel like this school is preparing me to be a nurse. In fact, I asked a clinical instructor about this situation and she said that not all nursing schools are like this. She views this program as a way to buy a degree because they aren't teaching us effectively. Her advice: to basically do what they tell me to do and get out of here...I think that's the awful truth.
If anyone has any words of encouragement, please post. I'm about to pull my hair out in frustration.
Gail
This post could have been written by me, I just sucked it up for 16 months and now I passed my NCLEX so I never have to worry about it again.
My school is about the same. I asked to make an appt. to get help with the math a week before an exam and was told that "your grades are good, I'll go over it in class again and you'll be ok" i said "so you'r not going to help me?" and she said "no". I got a 70 on the test and she called me into the office to say "you got a a 70 on the test, what happened?" I didn't know if I was crazy or if she was. I hired an outside tutor and passed with an A. I am just waiting for Dec. when I graduate. We have one great teacher who cares but the attitudes and lack of organization make it very stressful.
I think that some of that problem lies in the fact that, as an academic discipline, nursing leaves a lot to be desired. There is just an overall lack of qualified and enthusiastic instructors and administrators.
I am finishing my first year at a CC. Overall, I love this program and the teachers. I pulled the short straw in clinical this rotation though. They had a clinical instructor get sick midway through first semester, and replaced her with someone who never taught before and has terrible clinical skills and even worse people skills. It was pure h*** for those seven weeks. The kicker is they hired her to teach our class again next year! We are doing out best to convince the faculty they need to rethink this decision and I hope they do over the summer!
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
Stuff like this was said about my BSN completion program. Some of it was true. Basically, our theme became "do what they tell us to get our degree and get the heck out of here". Some put it as "when they say 'Jump', say 'how high?'". However, I will tell you right now that it didn't mean that I got a substandard education. Not in the least. Not all the instructors were like that. What I would do is start asking the professors long before the tests what would be appropriate to study and keep bugging them about that so there were no day before the test surprises. I began figuring out after awhile that the instructors were lecturing from their own notes and outlines rather than from what the required textbooks were presenting. This is very common in large universities where the professors are involved in research. They will lecture on stuff that is important to them and then test on stuff right out of the textbook because the program requires that. The fact of the matter is that if you know what the subject matter is and it seems disorganized, then it is going to be partly up to you students to put it into some sort of organized manner. That has traditionally been part of the necessary requirements of a university education since their inception. That is why it is good to look at more than one resource (textbook) since different authors approach each subject just a little bit differently. Overall, the information is all the same. Only the way it is organized and presented is different. Are you sure you haven't been given a set of objectives at the beginning of every course? Those are generally the guidelines for the exams. Let those people who feel that they have been treated unfairly insofar as an 80 mile communte is concerned address this themselves with their individual instructors. I can't believe the program leaders just sit there and say "too bad" without some kind of explanation.
I had the great (mis)fortune once to take a class where the professor teaching it had written the textbook. As each class started he would ask if anyone had any questions about anything in the book. No questions? He was then off in his own little world of lecture. His lectures were interesting and fascinating, but most of the stuff he talked about never appeared on his tests.
Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.
I am finishing my first year at a CC. Overall, I love this program and the teachers. I pulled the short straw in clinical this rotation though. They had a clinical instructor get sick midway through first semester, and replaced her with someone who never taught before and has terrible clinical skills and even worse people skills. It was pure h*** for those seven weeks. The kicker is they hired her to teach our class again next year! We are doing out best to convince the faculty they need to rethink this decision and I hope they do over the summer!
I was just reading something about this whole nursing instructor shortage. One of the problems is that some colleges, like a lot of employers these days are hiring first time instructors to only work part time or for only a short period so they don't have to pay them benefits or allow them to attain tenure. A lot of times the instructor position is a second job for a nurse who already has a full time nursing job somewhere else and needs the extra money. It is all in the name of saving money for the educational institution. Of course, it is the students who end up suffering the inconsistencies in the way they are instructed under this kind of money business.
But I went back, kept at it, and guess what? After learning about the facility, the facility policies and procedures, the people/management/chain of command at the facility, I left the externship feeling like I could start working there and be GOOD at it. 
chris85
8 Posts
I am at Hinds Community College in Jackson. The instructors tell us all the time that we are the best. I have heard from some nurses in the hospital also that Hinds is a really good school. I don't really care one way or the other, I'm just ready to be done with it. Before I found this website I thought Hinds was different from any other school, just being so much harder. But it turns out they are just like the rest i suppose. If you can graduate from a nursing program and pass NCLEX you're gonna be a good nurse no matter what school you went to.