Confused with the competitiveness in Nursing... can someone explain

lightsnoise · Aug 22, 2009

It's called a lottery program--and many community colleges that offer an ADN program do this.

llg, PhD, RN · Aug 22, 2009

A couple of different forces are at work that cause people to have unrealistic expectations:

1. People are raised to believe that they can "grow up to be anything you want to be" ... "succeed if you keep trying," etc. We are taught since childhood to not "give up on our dreams." "Quitters never win." etc. It's ingrained in our culture that we should not give up. If you spend enough time here on allnurses, you will find many threads with situations such as you describe. A few people will advise the poster to move on to other possibilities. However, they are almost always outnumbered by the people who give the discouraged poster a pep talk, telling them that can succeed if only they keep trying.

2. Many school counselors (particularly from schools that are run by businesses to make a profit) are in the business of helping people who want to keep trying. Their job is to help those people "find a way" to succeed if they want to continue. They are not paid to tell people to drop out of school. Yes, the majority will fail -- but they are in the business of helping those who want to keep trying even though only a minority will succeed. Many community colleges also define their mission as that of helping students who could not succeed at a 4-year college/university. That's why they were founded -- to provide educational opportunities to those for whom access/abilities are limited.

Add those two things together and you have a recipe for denial. Students are socialized since childhood to keep trying in spite of repeated failures ... and the counselors are trained and paid to help them keep trying. No one teaches or encourages people to realistically assess their chances and to give up when it is sometimes appropriate.

O2BNRN · Aug 22, 2009

Unfortunately, at my school, there are a lot of people accepted who don't have a chance in H*** of finishing. One of my friends is starting her 2nd year (ADN) and she said they have lost 6 students and the LPN class that she started with had lost even more! The problem with my school is that while they consider the nursing programs to be "selective admissions", you just have to jump through the right hoops to be accepted. It really annoys me when I hear how many people are flunking out because the waiting list to start is 3 YEARS LONG!!! I have a 4.0 and have been waiting for almost 2 years... Yes, I would love to go to a different college but this is where my hubby works and I am not willing to separate my family, so I wait..... :cry:

I know -from prereq classes- several girls who will be starting with me in my class that I'm pretty darn sure wont make it through the first semester. That's sad to say, but it's true... One in particular had to take ALL of her science classes 2 times just to get the required grade (C!!!) I'm not trying to say I think I'm really smart or anything, but she was in my sociology class -which I considered to be quite easy and common sense- and barely passed it with a C. Every test, she would ask, "How did you know those answers?!" And I would always tell her, "I read the chapter!" Like, DUH!!! :wink2: lol

Anyway, it's not up to me to pick who gets to start. The only thing I can control is my personal educational experience. I know this particular girl is going to expect me to tutor her though NS the way I have through many of our other classes, but there is NO WAY! I've learned enough from these boards to know you need to suround yourself with people who contribute to study groups. After all, I'm a student too!!!! Not the teacher!

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Aug 23, 2009

I know exactly what you mean. I just have to talk about one particular girl who was in my A&P 2 lab this summer. She was taking the class as a prereq to the dental hygienist program at that school. She seemed clueless about what was going on, I could tell from the really silly questions she was asking me and it made me wonder how the h*** she passed A&P 1. Once she discovered that I had a good head on my shoulders (and mind you I am a modest person by nature), she latched on to me as if she had found the key to her success in the class. We had a quiz at the beginning of each lab which covered material from the prior lab. During our first quiz, I caught her trying to sneak peeks at my paper. I finished before she did and leaned back with my paper so she could not see, and she had the f'g nerve to lean back to try to see again, making no secret of what she wanted to do. I yank my paper away making it clear that I was not tolerating her game. I get a 10/10 and she managed to pull an 8/10 but clearly due to my answers.

During other labs, I got tired of her sly comments about my grades ("You got a 10 didn't you?", "Of course you're getting 20's on your quizzes [our lecture class was online]) and I remember telling her that all you have to do is read the chapter and the notes and she can do as well as anyone. She then proceeded to use her 1-year-old son as an excuse and I told her that I work a full workweek and that you just have to make time. She also argued as to why she had to bother learning about the reproductive system when it has nothing to do with teeth. Imagine my utter SHOCK when she could not even name the most basic structures of the female reproductive system for the quiz! I was stuck with her as a lab partner and she was always complaining about the formaldehyde smell of our dissections and I don't have to mention who ended up doing all the dissections.

I ended up distancing myself from her, she was clearly hindering me from what I needed to do for the class. Fortunately I emerged with A's in both lecture and lab, and I am sure she did not. NOW, don't get me wrong! I would have been more than happy to help her understand the material better, but what she clearly wanted me to do was spoon feed her the info so she could pass, and I was not about to do that. I can't believe people like this are allowed to be in college, seriously!

cpkRN · Aug 23, 2009

I had several similar experiences but one stands out amongst the rest. A girl in my A &P I class became frustrated, stood up, and screamed, "Why do I have to know all this crap*? I just want to be a nurse!"

*She used a more crass word.

Ummm... okay? Human body, processes, etc. won't be part of your job? I understand frustration but geez!

Like another poster said, it's all about your personal education experience. When these students start to bring me down, I make the situations funny (in my own head) and move along. Or I come to AllNurses and post them :smokin: So far, I haven't experienced anyone like this in my actual nursing program, thank God!

caliotter3 · Aug 23, 2009

One sad thing about students like those described, is the amount of time and energy the instructor wastes on them during the class when it would be more beneficial to the rest of the students to move on. Yes, they pay their tuition too, but it certainly would help if they pulled their own weight and stopped wasting everyone's time, including their own.

PacoUSA, BSN, RN · Aug 23, 2009

One sad thing about students like those described, is the amount of time and energy the instructor wastes on them during the class when it would be more beneficial to the rest of the students to move on. Yes, they pay their tuition too, but it certainly would help if they pulled their own weight and stopped wasting everyone's time, including their own.

I've taken an unofficial poll over the years of fellow classmates and I seem to notice an interesting trend, but this is particularly more significant at the undergraduate level. When you're young and most all of your college tuition and fees are being paid by mommy & daddy or financial aid (i.e., nothing is coming out of your own pocket), you tend to not care as much about school as if you're paying for courses out of your own pocket (you care even more if you're older and you've recognized the value of money). That explains a lot of my levity as a younger undergrad years ago, and why I did not appreciate my education the way I do now.

I paid about $425 for each A&P class I took this summer, you better believe I was going to make sure I got an A for my money. Don't get me wrong, financial aid is a necessity to afford sometimes exorbitant tuition and fees, and of course there are always some exceptions to the trend I presented above. You can believe that I would have done things VERY differently if I could just turn back the hands of time by 20 years!