Clashing With My Advisor

[missmagee]

Hey Pre-Nursing and Nursing Students...

Me and my advisor bump heads - A LOT - and it's only been 3 weeks of school!!

Why...well she started out the beginning of the school year by trying to get me to take classes that are below the classes I took in high school (I was an honors student - taking honors classes)...when I realized that, I went home and rescheduled everything for classes that were actually worth my time and not wasting my money...

when I met with her today (just for a check to see how I was liking it) she was so annoyed that I had changed my classes and when I tried to explain to her why - she just kept going on and on about how I needed to trust her as an advisor...

the thing is - she has a horrible reputation with nursing and pre-nursing students! She was so annoyed that I felt like I knew something about what would be heavily relied on in nursing school...

She was angry with me that I didn't want to take the Chem 1000 course ( my program only requires a C for high school chemistry ) because she says I'm going to need it so much for Microbiology and Pharmacology...I wanted to say...

"I know where it's going to be used - and how to educate myself if I need a refresher. I know that dimensional analysis will be used for dosage calcs. I know that ph content will be used for blood work, analysis, and other toxicities. I know how important it is to know the polyatomic ions - in fact I still have notecards from my high school, I know osmosis and mitosis, and diffusion, I know what an acid and a base is." But I held my tongue...especially since it's a 2 year program - they cannot go that deep in two years - that's what a furthering of EDU is for!

It's like I understand she has a job to do - but I also understands advising is her paycheck and that colleges want money. I'm not going to waste my time or money when I the program I'm going into is only 2 years...lol

This nonsense with my advisor has even got me switching which ADN program I go into simply because I don't want to deal with her! (also the other program is a million times better in terms of what is covered)

...advice?

[Aaic]

Request a new advisor? Or only take advice on a as need basis.

[ScientistSalarian]

Sorry you're butting heads with your advisor, but I just wanted to chime in on the chemistry issue. I was a SI instructor and also privately tutored pre-nursing students in physiology and watched MANY people struggle through it because they didn't realize that a firm grasp of chemistry was required to really understand the material. Many of these students, like you, had done perfectly well in high school chemistry but it just wasn't adequate preparation for a college-level biology class. So sure, it might be a conspiracy to make you pay additional tuition for a class you don't think you need. Or maybe she's actually trying to help you prepare yourself for your chosen educational path. Sorry, I'm really not trying to be combative but your assumption that you already know everything you need to know struck me as a wee bit arrogant.

/hopping off my soapbox

[queserasera, RN]

In my 2 years of pre reqs I've only once seen an advisor. She confused the hell out of me so I figured out everything I needed on my own.

[HouTx, BSN, MSN, EdD]

Logically, what reason(s) would OP's advisor have for misleading? What benefit would she derive from this? Are you in a for-profit school & she benefits from driving up tuition revenue? Does she receive a benefit from sales of the course materials/text? Just trying to figure out why OP is convinced of the advisor's evil intentions.

One of the hardest aspects of maturation is the ability to accept "corrective" feedback with an open mind. For many of us, our natural response to criticism is a " shields up!" defensive stance. Mine certainly was. But somewhere along the line, I had the startling realization that not everyone was out to get me - I was just not that important - in the grand scheme - for people to exert so much of their time and effort towards making my life miserable. Maybe, just maybe . . . the were just telling me the truth, as they know it.

My epiphany? When interacting with others, always presume that they have good intentions.

[Summer Days]

I was once in a similar situation and here's how I went about it. There existed a page at the back of the class schedule that listed degree requirements along with classes that fulfilled each section. I studied this page as well as nursing school requirements. Based on these, I jotted down all classes I needed to take to fulfill both degree and nursing school requirements. I made sure I took classes that knocked off two sections at once. Say for instance psychology class which fulfilled both degree and nursing school requirement. Then I would go to the counselor as is mandatory, listen to her advise (never argued with her for one second) but registered for the classes I jotted down. After all, I am the one taking the classes and exams. I graduated from that junior college sooner than the counselor had anticipated. My advise to you is to be calm with your counselor and let her have her say but register for the classes you know you need per requirements.

And yes HouTx some counselors have you take non-transferable, non-degree classes like mine who advised me to take pre-algebra when I needed college algebra and was already placed in. They do this to keep you around in college for long.