Do I have to take History to be a nurse.

[Darkpk55]

I hate History, for some reason, I can never understand it. When I get a history textbook, it takes me like 6 hours to read a chapter and understand it. Every other subject I get 100% in except history. Its soo harrdddd!!!!!

Is philosophy or any pre-req classes like history, because if it is then im gonna cry.

[manusko]

that remark of my dad's was made in jest!

well you know how well humor translates on the internet. are we done sparring yet?

[sharpeimom]

well you know how well humor translates on the internet. are we done sparring yet?

i thought it was more in the nature of a spirited discussion than a sparring match!

i guess the old boarding school debater in me reemerged for a bit.

[nursel56]

If this was a posting on a site about how education is important and a discussion about classical education then I would understand everyone's point of view and personal beliefs. I was just commenting on the value of AMerican History on a nursing degree. I love history and I could also understand some value on courses that require more thinking than a survey course. Future students will have the luxury of taking these classes while gaining dual credit if high school and college. Then when they start college they will be able to start Sophmore classes or pre-reqs then enter nursing school.

Not to be disrespectful, but spending money on college courses to better my conversation at cocktail parties couldn't be a bigger waste of time for myself.

My post was intended as a "bridge building" post. ===clunk=== That worked out well. :) I jest, and rather clumsily it appears. Best of luck to you in your future endeavors.

[BBRANRN2013, ASN, RN]

I never had to take a history class to get in nursing school. I just finished up all my pre-reqs and start the clinical component in January. No History for me. Check with the school that you plan to attend and they should have a checklist of all the classes you will need before applying.

[decembergrad2011, BSN, RN]

My university didn't specifically require history as a pre-req to nursing school, or for my bachelors degree in general. We had to have a certain amount of humanities requirements, which could have included history courses, but not necessarily. I chose to go without the history!

I HATE HISTORY. Hate, hate, hate it. I see the value in it, but I just don't care all that much about death, destruction, and war - the vast majority of my classes in school. And I'm even the student who took AP World History and AP US History in high school - because I knew it was important, even if I hated it. I was thankful to not have had to study it in college, because no matter what anyone says, it is the same thing over and over again. If I didn't retain it during all of my years before college, 2 semesters wouldn't change my point of view.

Philosophy, on the other hand, is an invaluable class if you have a good instructor. If you have a biased instructor, forget it, it's a 24/7 debate and you're forced to bend to their viewpoint. I feel like with a good course though that it really encourages critical thinking and acceptance of various viewpoints. Ethics in particular is a good course, especially for nursing.

[manusko]

i thought it was more in the nature of a spirited discussion than a sparring match!

i guess the old boarding school debater in me reemerged for a bit.

i really do not have a problem with the discussion but i also do not want to degrade the education or beliefs of another. for those who have degrees in areas other than nursing, probably also have classes that required much more insight and debate during their junior and senior level courses. my main statement was referring to the impact that some freshman and sophmore classes have on the rest of your education.

[Saysfaa]

"I just don't care all that much about death, destruction, and war - the vast majority of my classes in school."

I agree, unfortunately. Once away from the restrictions of classes, history gets much more interesting.

Cerda, try historical fiction (choose carefully and still take with several grains of salt), and following rabbit trails (hm, is that a common phrase or just among my family?) of anything that catches your interst. Neither will directly help with passing a class, but they do provide a framework to hang the info for the classes which makes it easier to remember.

Also, the more you know about something the more interesting it gets; it just makes more sense with more context. At least, I've found that to be true.

[TheSquire, DNP, APRN, NP]

.

I readily concede that you don't need any of the liberal arts classes to be a nurse. Assuming you retain what you learn in the unrelated classes (and if you don't care you probably won't) it all goes into sort of a matrix that isn't quantifiable. In my case, the way in which information is presented makes all the difference, and that's a learning style issue. I do really well in a classroom environment with student-student-instructor interaction.

Please don't concede that: liberal arts classes are where one's written communication skills are honed through the various papers and projects and whatnot that one works on. Based on many of the posts I've read on allnurses.com, let alone the many crimes against grammar committed in nursing notes written by people for whom English is supposedly their first language, I can say that this is an area in which the nursing workforce is sadly deficient.

[cgravier]

maybe. I don't.

[Abby Normal]

I never understand it when people say history is boring.

History courses taught badly by bored teachers are boring. Unfortunately, that's too many teachers today. Fortunately, college history classes, and teachers, are usually much better.

But history is life. History is people. Someday, everything that is happening to you, everything that is so vital and important and so meaningful, is going to be history. Your life, your clothes, your work, the people you love, the local and world events that jolt us from day to day. Is that boring? I don't think so. I think we're all amazing! And I love looking at photographs of nurses from 100 years ago, 70 years ago, 40 years ago. Look at their faces. Look at their (wool) uniforms. Look at the wards. (Persian carpets! Palm trees!) Look at the OR equipment. Look at where people stand. It's all history.

Studying history is having a few pieces of information and trying to make a framework of logic, a situation, a world that makes those pieces of information make sense. That seems useful for a nurse.

History is humbling. You think you know everything, or you think you have it bad, you think you're the first person something has happened to --- then you look back over three thousand years and you see you're not so important, and you can't overreact. Humility is valuable for a nurse.

Once you get beyond the 1492-oceanblue stuff, in college, studying history becomes taking those pieces of information and constructing an argument, and backing it up. What caused this revolt, or this migration? Were nurses in the 18th century really all drunks or were they just poor women without access to clean drinking water? Nobody really knows, so you have to line up your best information and make your most persuasive argument. Historians study all kinds of things -- nursing, science, weather, animals, clothing, domestic habits -- there are even candy historians!

And taking a stand and defending it with facts is something you definitely need as a nurse.

Don't just lie down and accept the same old history that you are spoon fed over and over in school. There is so much more than the same 5 wars! You almost always have a chance to write a paper where you can explore an interest you have. There were nurses during the Civil War. And did you know there was a Jamaican woman, Mary Seacole, who was also at the Crimea at the same time as Florence Nightengale, and had a free clinic using herbal remedies to treat soldiers? There's a lot of history in peacetime too. Everyone and everything has history. It's not just for men and guns.

I hated history in high school, then ended up majoring in it, and loving it, in college. The facts you learn are really not important. It's the structured way of thinking, reading, viewing the world and arguing that is the true benefit. Cocktail party chat? I can't imagine why anybody would be interested. But I definitely find it made me a more organized thinker. Which is what you go to college for, right?

As someone suggested, sometimes reading a historical novel (or even watching a movie) that occurs at the similar time period as the time you are studying in class helps things come alive a little bit more.

If you have to take it, you have to take it. I hope it turns out to be a positive experience, no matter what happens.

[nursel56]

Please don't concede that: liberal arts classes are where one's written communication skills are honed through the various papers and projects and whatnot that one works on. Based on many of the posts I've read on allnurses.com, let alone the many crimes against grammar committed in nursing notes written by people for whom English is supposedly their first language, I can say that this is an area in which the nursing workforce is sadly deficient.

My "concession" was in response to morificeko's opinion that only sciences and other nursing related courses should be required, and some back and forth discussion wherein I opined that all those history, anthropology etc courses were helpful to me as a nurse. He disagreed with me on that.

However, it is true that you do not need those courses to be a nurse. You don't even need to know how to write a paper to be a nurse, broadly speaking. You in fact don't need to have a good command of the English language at all to be a nurse. It used to be that having graduated from high school meant you had honed your communication skills through various papers and projects. That standard has dropped so much that community colleges find themselves teaching remedial classes to almost every incoming freshman.

I agree about the poorly written posts here to a certain extent, but I don't think the reason for it is a lack of liberal arts classes prior to being licensed as a nurse. My manager has a Master's and the most butchered up English I've ever seen in my life!

[manusko]

My "concession" was in response to morificeko's opinion that only sciences and other nursing related courses should be required, and some back and forth discussion wherein I opined that all those history, anthropology etc courses were helpful to me as a nurse. He disagreed with me on that.

However, it is true that you do not need those courses to be a nurse. You don't even need to know how to write a paper to be a nurse, broadly speaking. You in fact don't need to have a good command of the English language at all to be a nurse. It used to be that having graduated from high school meant you had honed your communication skills through various papers and projects. That standard has dropped so much that community colleges find themselves teaching remedial classes to almost every incoming freshman.

I agree about the poorly written posts here to a certain extent, but I don't think the reason for it is a lack of liberal arts classes prior to being licensed as a nurse. My manager has a Master's and the most butchered up English I've ever seen in my life!

Ahhh...I never said science classes should be the only required classes for nurses, I just stated that History classes taken have not had an impact on my nursing career. I believe that English Comp, Computer Science, Speech and similar classes are very important and have been an asset to my education. I absolutely needed a BSN to get where I am today and where I am going tomorrow because of MSN requirements of current education.

Now for the poorly written posts I blame texting. People have become lazy about writing and have forgotten how to communicate with each other unless they are typing on a cell phone.