Disappointed in Pinning "Ceremony"

[Barb(Old Biddy)]

Attended Univ's. Nothing special about it. Graduates wore street clothes and their parents or sig. other put their pins on them. Where in heaven did that idea come from? Had slide show of grads. pictures. At least they had on a white blouse and lab coat in the pics, but most had the long hair hanging down. Looked more like Glamour Shots. Profs. spoke and bragged on themselves about how smart they are and read some silly poems. The last pinning ceremony I went to was beautiful. The graduates wore pretty white dress uniforms, came in with lit candles, recited the N. pledge, and their instructors pinned them. It was very moving to witness that ceremony.

[Teshiee]

Even though I hate wearing white but in this case where we are gradutes I think it would have been appropriate to keep the tradition alive. But it was a vote so what can you do? I guess they were so sick of wearing white during clinicals the last thing they wanted to do is wear white at their graduation. Times are changing. I was so pleased that my nursing school did not make us wear white uniforms but white gowns to cover our street clothes so at least we were at sync.

[brooklynb]

I am graduating this May and our class is wearing whites because that is what we all have to wear to clinicals. It is school policy and we didn't vote, that is just how it has always been done at our school. We are BSN students and at the hospital where we do our clinicals, all RN's are required to wear whites... I am not sure about LPN's but it is a very traditional hospital and school. We are all wearing our caps by choice because it is tradition and some of us are even wearing white dress uniforms as they always have at our school up until the mid 90's. I guess we are just all old fashioned but it is so nice walking down the hall and looking at 30 plus years of graduates on the wall in their whites and caps. It is tradition at our school and patients in the hospital never have trouble finding a nurse when they need one.

Okie Nurse Student

We never know how high we are til we are called to rise,

And if our stature's true to form we shall touch the sky.

Emily Dickinson

[imenid37]

Cyberkat you must be a fellow Uof MD grad! I don't have my cap from there because they did not give them to us in the RN-BSN program. I have a dear little ruffled maid's hat w/ a black and red stripe from my community college where I recieved my ADN. I doubt that school still gives out caps either. The flossies were very pretty. I'd like to have one to display, but not to wear!

[Alnamvet]

We had a pinning ceremony....required uniform was the humiliating morgue attendant attire in vomit green...only school in the Miami area whose student nurses looked like psych ward heavies. Needless to say, all the men in the class did not attend.

As for previous posts referencing cute white uniform dresses and caps, I bet the guys were a picture of the new professional nurse...sheeeshhh:rolleyes:

[Gompers, BSN, RN]

Our pinning ceremony (6 years ago) was held in one of our school's oldest buildings, in a fancy old theater that many students had never even realized existed!!! It was one week before graduation.

My class also go to vote on whether we'd wear our white clinical uniforms or dress clothes. White was voted against, much to my disappointment. However, after 3 years of washing my uniforms in well water, I guess I wouldn't have exactly been wearing white anyway, LOL. The school did away with caps about ten years ago. So we all wore dress clothes, and when we walked in we had candles, I believe. There were some speeches by staff and students. Then we got called up one at a time and were pinned by a favorite instructor, whom we had chosen beforehand. I think we got a flower as well. Afterwards the school provided cake and coffee elsewhere in that same beautiful building. The nice thing about the pinning was that we were able to invite as many people as we wanted. For graduation, each student only got 4 tickets, so it was great to be able to involve more people.

But the ceremony that I really remember was during sophomore year, before we started clinicals. I went to a Catholic university, and before students enter the hospital environment, they have a blessing of the hands. We invited our families to the chapel, and there was a beautiful ceremony. We got our hands blessed, one by one, and it really struck a chord in me. I'm not all that religious, but when you're looking down at your hands as someone is blessing them, you can't help but realize the awesome responsibility you are about to take on.