Do you think this was unfair?

[SNLou84]

Hi everyone.....so right now I am a nursing student and i am not very happy with my school right now. A lot of students aren't. We pay so much money and the school is so disorganized, the teachers are rude, and I find myself dreading every day I have to go. I miss my old school. I wish i never left at times. Here is my dilemma....please tell me what you think and if you would feel the same way I do or what you feel I should do.

Recently I just had my first care plan due. I finished it a week before it was due. I worked so hard on it and I know I would have received an A on it. Well, my teacher told us that she wanted us to turn it in as a hard copy to her at the start of clinical on the Thursday it was due. That Thursday, at about 1 in the morning I found out my aunt had passed away a couple days prior and that her wake was going to be later that day. I was late in knowing about it because I had not been home for a couple days since I was studying at my Godmother's for two exams and doing a research project- that's where I go when I need peace and quiet for exams.

So I came home Wednesday night - more like Thursday morning because it was 1 am - and found out that the wake was that morning (Thursday). I have a son (toddler age) that normally my mother or my boyfriend watches for me when I have clinical. However, my boyfriend had work and because of the death in my family, my mom and dad and my entire family had to go to the wake. Both my parents work on Thursday so this meant they had to go early as possible and they planned to stay until they had to leave for work. Therefore, I had to stay home with my son. If i had a choice, I would have gone to the wake but my son is very little and I just wasn't comfortable with him going to a wake yet at his age. So, when I found this out at 1 am......I emailed my teacher right away and I let her know. I had her house number but I didn't feel comfortable calling her house at 1 in the morning when on her paper it says the time to call her house is between 6 and 6:30 am. So I emailed her and told her the situation. Then, I thought to myself that I should just email the care plan just in case since i wouldn't be able to make it in. i just got a new MAC so I was still a little new to using it and because it was our first care plan....of course I had issues.

We were allowed to send our care plan in for review since it was our first one and I did the week prior. I did it in the format that the instructor has us download and everything seemed fine and I saved it. I sent it to my teacher and when I received it back from her, she said it wasn't in the correct format and that it needed to be but that she could tell I did a lot of hard work and that it was really good. I opened the document back up, and like she said, it was no longer in the correct format. It no longer had the box format and the lines, etc... So to make her happy, I copied and pasted everything back into the original format and printed it out when I had completed the care plan so that way my hard copy was at least in the right format.

So back to the wake/not being able to go to clinical dilemma.....so at 1 in the morning, i sat there trying to figure out how to make it work and stay in the format. I even tried sending it to my yahoo email and tried pulling it up on my HP computer, only to have it cut off words, make the paragraphs long but not wide, and half of a page was not showing up but if I clicked by it, some of the words would come back up but as soon as I clicked away or printed it out, it didn't show up again. I tried four times sending it to my email in different ways and nothing would work. Therefore, I decided to forget it because my hard copy was in the correct layout and I didn't want to send an online copy that was all messed up and have her grade that one instead. Mind you, this whole time I was never thinking I HAD to send an online copy because our instructor wanted it as hard copy. I checked my email throughout the day and right before bed and never received nothing from her.

The next morning, I saw her email saying that she never got my care plan and that because I did not turn it in on the due date that most likely I will not be graded from the final care plan and that she will see if she can use the care plan I turned in for review - a care plan that did not have the reference page complete, did not have the AMETHOD complete, did not have the surgery step by step complete. We have to receive a 79 on the care plan or else it is considered failed and if you fail a care plan, it says in the syllabus that means you fail the class. I am hoping I am reading this wrong because I think this is insane!!

The very next day I turned in the hard copy of my care plan. My instructor knew I did not make up this excuse, she knew I had to have had my care plan done because I was one of the few that turned it in for review and didn't save it for the day before it was due. On Monday, the head instructor talked to me (this is who I am unhappy with) and told me they would not be accepting my hard copy of my care plan. I told her that I had a death in my family, my aunt, and I did not have any choice but to miss. i told her I didn't even get to go to the wake because I had no one to watch my son. I have never had anyone treat me as rude as this woman did. She basically implied I should have found a babysitter....because right... finding one at 1 am is so easy!! And with my whole family being at the wake, there wasn't anyone to watch him. My mom does a lot for me and the least I could do was let her and my father go to a wake for someone very close to us. This instructor then had the nerve to say, "And what was your aunt's name?" As if I was lying! I told her my aunt's first name and she's like, "and last name?". I couldn't believe it. She had me in tears when i walked back in the classroom. My whole family is just shocked by the insensitivity of her behavior....the school says they stand for compassion and respect, but where was that when she was talking to me?? To leave me in tears and because my aunt died i may possibly be kicked out of nursing school??? I am so upset right now.

I told her that I was never told to send it through email, that my instructor wanted a hard copy. I told her that I DID try to send it online just to make myself feel better and as proof it was done but I even said in the email to the instructor that I would try and email it if it worked but that I knew she knew I finished it because she saw my review and that was almost finished. I told the instructor that I tried to send it and it had parts missing then and the whole layout was lost with the boxes and lines. She told me I should have called some tech place. As i have come to find out, this tech place is for online classes for the school! The syllabus did not say A WORD about this tech place. I emailed the tech place to find out if in fact they deal with MAC/HP incompatibility problems but I'm thinking they deal with blackboard/computer problems, not what I am having a problem with.

What I don't get is how rude and insensitive she was about my aunt passing away....and how she couldn't even be understanding for the FIRST care plan when OF COURSE people are going to have issues. I don't see how it is my fault that my computer is up to date and hers is 2003. I don't feel I should be punished for that. I wish I could have recorded the way she talked to me because it was just so low, as if I was nobody to her. Why do I pay all this money and here I am going to a religious university and yet, they aren't even understanding when a family member dies??? Yet somehow I was suppose to still turn in this care plan with the files not working and with not even knowing I 100% needed to turn it in online. I emailed my instructor twice and she had all day to write me back that day and did not. If she had told me to email my care plan, I would have just emailed it the way it was but I never received an email telling me to email it to her so how was i suppose to know that they would be THIS insensitive and act like my situation meant nothing.

If you were me, would you go to someone higher about this? I truly feel my final care plan deserved to be accepted. I did not use an excuse because I didn't have it done.....I did not miss just to miss. I had no one else to watch my son and my family including myself was mourning for my aunt. I turned it in the very next morning, bright and early, and yet that was not good enough. The lady has my hard copy sitting in her hands and yet she is refusing to accept it. I honestly cannot believe this school...I am so sick of going here and dealing with such cold, heartless people. We get our care plans back this week & if I pass, I probably will just be the bigger person and let it be.....but if I don't pass when I know very well I should have and after knowing how some people did it the day before it was due and didn't do half the work I did....then yeah, I am going to have a problem because I am not letting this woman kick me out of the nursing program when I have a 4.0 GPA and have worked so hard to be where I am at right now.

Thanks to everyone who listened to me vent and any advice posted. I truly do appreciate it.

Then, I went to bed.....because I was on 2 hrs of sleep and knew I would be getting up pretty early with my son.

[nneokill175]

wow the head was definitely an ass.

[sharpeimom]

first of all, i'm very sorry to hear about your aunt's death. it will become easier to bear as time passes.

my husband is a college professor and teaches many nursing students each semester. so many many students invent relatives and then kill them off when they need a convenient excuse to miss class or not turn in a paper when it's due that it's very difficult not to be cynical when the next student announces a death. i'm in no way implying that your aunt didn't die, rather that the timing of her demise was unfortunate. what students do when something serious comes up unexpectedly, is exactly what you did -- notify the instructor or professor promptly. another thing you might have done was to print out your project in the correct format (if possible) and then taken your son with you and slipped the hard copy under her office door with a brief explanation of your situation, and the promise of the final copy later in the day or, at the latest, by the next day. i would include a copy or even a xerox of the obit with your package. could another student have babysat while you were at clinical? my husband has had moms bring babies, toddlers, kids with them to class in such an emergency. do you belong to a ywca? many yw's have very low cost daycare available plus programs for kids beginning from age two to six. you might check. our public library has several programs for little kids and toddlers. do you have a neighbor you could use in a pinch? check with your local senior citizens center because most are loving caring grandmas and would love to babysit and spoil your boy. remember not all faculty members are identical. most are understanding, accommodating (when possible), and will work with students within rules, some are stricter than others, and a few are pretty unreasonable. i assume, from your post, that you're a single mom. most professors will be more inclined to cut students like you a break that an 18 year old living in the dorm who misses class after class because s/he was up until 5 am drinking and doing who knows what. as soon as you know what's going on when something comes up, email your professor. i know my husband would much rather have a rough draft and a promise than nothing, but don't do it regularly!! get yourself a backup babysitter plus daycare and a preschool/toddler program. that way, all your bases are covered.

hugs,

kathy

sharpeimom:paw::paw:

[caliotter3]

My father died at the inopportune time when I had several midterms and projects due. I left the area immediately to tend to my distraught mother. When I returned, all of my instructors were compassionate and allowed me to make everything up, except one. The head of the nursing department, who happened to be my instructor for one class, gave me hell and literally threw me out of his office within earshot of all the nursing office personnel. They were staring at me as I left in shock and in tears. An F in that class would have put me in line for failure from the program. It was only after some time and groveling on my part, that the man reversed his decision to give me an F on the midterm. That was for my father. Heavens, if it would have been my aunt.

That story being told, it is your responsibility in the end to see that things are attended to. If you have a list of three or three hundred people to act as sitters, you still are responsible to deal with childcare issues successfully. The issue with the computer, same there. You can't wait until the last minute to deal with computer issues. I had issues with my computer just this term for my first online class. I got chewed out by a brand new instructor for an important class, who told me in no uncertain terms that I should have resolved my computer issues at the time I enrolled, not when the first project was due. I understood her point of view. You have to plan for, and deal with, unforseen circumstances often in life, or life will be more difficult than it is to begin with. Have had several family deaths recently, including my mother so I am sorry to hear about your aunt's death.

[L8RRN]

We set up an agreement with some of our fellow nursing students that had clinical on opposite days. Ya know...I will watch your child for you in an emergency if you would please do the same. It worked well for us and helped prevent some of the types of things you are referring to AND it helped reduce our stress because we knew we had a backup plan. It didn't work out for class days since we were all together, but it did work really well for lab/clinical days.

[sharpeimom]

a couple more thoughts:

as other posters have said, the ultimate responsibility for getting things done is yours.

you remember those things your mom said as you were growing up that you absolutely swore you would never ever ever say to your own kids? one of my mom's fits perfectly here. part of being a responsible adult is being willing to live with the consequences of your actions . . . this just may be one of those occasions. it may be a hard lesson and one you'll never forget, but that's how we learn, unfortunately. another of her phrases was to have all your ducks in a row. for you, that would be back up baby sitters outside your family plus daycare arrangements as emergency backup.

my husband read your initial post and my first answer and his thoughts were that frequently individual programs within a university havetheir own established guidelines

and that instructors frequently have less latitude than professors do. his other thought was that if you emailed her at 1:00 am, she may well not have checked her email until she had a chance later in the day.

kathy

sharpeimom:paw::paw:

[nursel56]

Boo on the snippy lady that asked you, "name?" etc. OK, yeah. We get it that she's been in the field for decades and seen it all, heard it all, etc. But every story is not B.S., and clearly she did not know you, your work ethic, etc. It's great that your instructor had your back. You sound like you're a responsible person, and this is probably a one-off incident, which is good news because you NEVER want to be on that lady's radar screen again!! Also, never hurts to have little Plan C, D, E, etc.. Redundancy!!

I really admire people with young children who go through nursing school. It's just so stressful. Good luck with the rest of the program!!

[Mommycakers]

Sorry to hear about your Aunt. I use a MAC so I know what you are talking about. When I make a document up using "Pages" I then have to go to the File menu. I then click on Export under the File menu and chose Word and then click on Export. Your document will then have the tag of .doc at the end of the document instead of .zip. You can go into your sent email files and see how your file was originally sent. It probably went as a .zip file. Hope this helped for future documents.