Does Program Organization Affect Your Ability to Learn?

I felt the same about my RN education and continue to feel this way as a MSN student. You do your best, don't be afraid to contact professors with questions, and always point out inconsistencies in their syllabi.

I have only had one disorganized instructor so far, and it was a frustrating semester. I just organized myself the best I could and tried to be self-taught.

In one way, this perception is also boosted by the very real difference between nursing education and other more didactic forms. In part, you are supposed to spend more time integrating all the different things you hear. This is because unlike your English major buddies, you will have to keep learning all your professional life, and information will rarely, if ever, be handed to you neatly and in an organized fashion.

Take this as a little hint to get ahead while your classmates are whining that their material isn't being handed to them nice and neat, like it was in high school.

Get a jump start on your critical thinking skills practice by saying to yourself every time a bit of data floats by, "Why do we care about this? What does this matter?" Think about where it belongs in you mental filing cabinet.

Believe me, in most things, it will all matter sometime, and you will be held responsible for having integrated it into your thinking.

I feel like there is some difference between the expectation of everything handed to you on a silver platter and knowing that you're in the midst of chaos. Granted, much of nursing is learning how to deal with chaos, but I feel like it would be beneficial to have a strong foundation in our education before having to cope with it. I have a bachelor's in another field, so I do understand what you are saying about how nursing education is different. However, other fields aren't entirely charitable with telling you what to do either. They expect you to figure things out on your own as well. The difference is, nursing is far more demanding, and you're dealing with lives.

Do you feel you predominantly taught yourself? That your professors are/were there merely to administer tests and quizzes? Because that is where we are at right now. It's jarring, that's for sure!

Thanks for the feedback!

My entire nursing program for my Associates was self-taught. Seriously. We were not given any suggestions for good books to practice with or read for better comprehension - I found these on my own time. The professors always had a really beautiful looking syllabus. It would list what each class would cover, the objectives for that class, and they even had office hours/telephone numbers/emails listed! Wow! Except... they weren't in their offices half the time, we couldn't schedule appointments because they were always claiming to be "busy," and they rarely answered emails. During my final ASN semester, I emailed one professor a total of 21 times and received two very short, curt, and irrelevant emails back.

Classes consisted of sitting and being told stories about how nursing was "back then," and "how easy things are now." They would also like to brag about how much they earned compared to nurses nowadays, and how nursing is full of "waitresses." Furthermore, the entire nursing department of my school was so completely disorganized that professors couldn't get in contact with each other (who knows if they were even trying or just lying about it), our clinical placements were taken away from us on the day we were supposed to start during our second semester (because they forgot to renew their agreement with the hospitals), and we have VERY expensive simulation mannequins which we used a total of two times (once to place a male/female foley cath, and once to listen to barely audible breath sounds). All the equipment is old and broken in our simulation lab, so it wasn't as if we could just waltz on in during our own free time and get good practice in.

Anyway, sorry about rambling on and on. I am so glad I'm done with my ASN and NCLEX. It sounds like you are aware that your professor is pretty useless, so you can control your own fate in the class - just study, study, study! And comprehend the material!

I would suggest picking up Lippincott books, Saunders books, and using Kaplan as a good Q Bank resource for rationales and to test where you stand on certain topics. I also got an online code for Prep-U which I feel was wonderful in helping me understand everything.

Yes! It sounds all too familiar. Actually your experience sounds far worse. Our profs are similar, but they are on it with our clinicals, and we have sims as well that we use often. Thank you for the advice! I will definitely look into those resources.