We were told yesterday that we're required to wear white scrubs for our 45 minute pinning ceremony.
As students, we are required to buy and wear ceil blue scrubs.
They want us to buy a set of white scrubs to wear for this short, silly ceremony.
I, being the way I am, questioned this idiocy and pointed out that a lot of the students in my class can barely afford to go to school and still feed their kids and pay their bills, and firmly averred my deep disdain for making us buy these "wear once" scrubs. On top of $1300 tuition + books this semester, $50 "pinning fee", $139 BON application fee, $50 HESI fee, $20ish fingerprint fee, $200+ NCLEX fee.....I've had enough.
Am I just being a fartknocker about this, or do any of you see this as stupid, pointless, and lacking concern or awareness about the financial woes of nursing students? I'm in a better position to afford this than most of my classmates because I had savings from past employment and my wife has a good-paying nursing job.
Some of my classmates, I have had to buy their meals at the stupid "end of semester clinical group gathering at the most expensive restaurant we can find, where we give the employed instructor the gift we managed to scrounge up $10/ea to buy" because some kissass, or often, the instructor, picks PF Changs instead of Shoneys.
It wouldn't be so bad if any of the hospitals here allowed whites (most of them have color-enforced dress codes), but to add ONE MORE expense, to be used for one stupid ceremony...well, it aggravated me.
The instructor, more used to meek and mild students who don't question the status quo, blinked about 10 times and then informed me I should start a petition to be given to the director of our program.
We did a petition in our first semester. They were thinking of moving our lab to a different campus which would have meant a lot more driving for most of us. They say that our petition had nothing to do with the fact they decided to keep our lab at our current campus, but we didn't have to move.
we were told that we had to pay for our vacinations or we wouldnt be allowed train in our teacing hospital.......they dont pay us for our training and in total we do 48 weeks of 35 hours in our programme.....they dont need to employ as many care assistants when we;re there either. And most of us have part time jobs on top of it. We went against them and refused to pay
Specializes in Urgent Care NP, Emergency Nursing, Camp Nursing.
we were told that we had to pay for our vacinations or we wouldnt be allowed train in our teacing hospital.......they dont pay us for our training and in total we do 48 weeks of 35 hours in our programme.....they dont need to employ as many care assistants when we;re there either. And most of us have part time jobs on top of it. We went against them and refused to pay
Everyone pays for their own vaccinations before clinical, either by themselves or through the student health plan if the school is large enough to have one. You'll also pay for your titers too, and pay to have them repeated whenever a hospital wants them redone. I fail to see the issue here.
So, what will they do if you show up in whatever you want to wear----not allow you to get pinned?
For similar reasons, I decided to skip [personal boycott] my pinning, my graduation, clinical award ceremony and honor society induction ceremony. Saw no reason to particpate; but, I know that I am an exception. Just felt that enough was enough and didn't need to get frustrated over all the stupid, costly mandates. I still have no regrets for what I did.
Seriously though, if you want to participate, can't you just show up in a suit and tell them that you decided to begin your career dressing for success, rather than looking like Mr. Clean ?
Look at it this way for our nursing brothers and sisters in the Philippines.
For graduation ceremony: 3,500 pesos
Gala uniform plus tailoring: 800 pesos
Odds and ends 500 pesos
total cost: 4,800 pesos
OK, divide 4,800 pesos by the current rate of the peso, 45:1 and you get $106.67USD
Not bad right? Wrong. Your average Filipino family pulls in $1,463 (USD) per YEAR. That graduation costs about 14% of an average Filipino families yearly income.
If your average American family makes $40,000 per year, (going really low for the sake of a conservative argument) the equivalent would be paying $5,600.00USD!! (No wonder it is such an emotional experience!!!)
Either way, I skipped my pinning, and am about to skip the graduation, too. I think the event could be held a bit less austere, and the impact felt would be no less. Hold it in a conference room in a hospital or something, I don't know. How about a nice plaque, and a handshake from the Dean?
Look at it this way for our nursing brothers and sisters in the Philippines.
For graduation ceremony: 3,500 pesos
Gala uniform plus tailoring: 800 pesos
Odds and ends 500 pesos
total cost: 4,800 pesos
OK, divide 4,800 pesos by the current rate of the peso, 45:1 and you get $106.67USD
Not bad right? Wrong. Your average Filipino family pulls in $1,463 (USD) per YEAR. That graduation costs about 14% of an average Filipino families yearly income.
If your average American family makes $40,000 per year, (going really low for the sake of a conservative argument) the equivalent would be paying $5,600.00USD!! (No wonder it is such an emotional experience!!!)
Either way, I skipped my pinning, and am about to skip the graduation, too. I think the event could be held a bit less austere, and the impact felt would be no less. Hold it in a conference room in a hospital or something, I don't know. How about a nice plaque, and a handshake from the Dean?
The average family in my county makes $26,000 a year.
Tuition for 3 semesters - $4350
Books for 3 semesters - $800 (1st) $230 (2nd) $250 + (3rd) not sure on third but we only bought 1 new set of books second semester and 3rd semester we will have two new sets
Uniforms - $95 (we had no choice about cost or where we got them from)
NCLEX - $300 + (I know its around 300 but not 100% on the exact price)
Unit End Exams - $75
Entrance test fee - $55
- random necessary things that I am not sure of the price on...stethescope/unexpected miscellaneous fees
So total Cost is $6155 plus incidentals (and I included our 3 required patches at $15 each and $10 per class syllabuses in that non-calculated incidentals)
Thats 23.6% of the income of the average family in my area PER YEAR!!!
Sorry but your math is off, or my entire section of the country is more poor than the average Phillipino~
And my school does not offer or accept payment from any types of school/educational loans what so ever because of their high default rate, so its truly either a grant for the poor students, or struggling immensely to pay for class expenses OUT OF POCKET if you don't qualify. Personally, I qualify for about half my tuition and nothing else and last week I had to water down my toddler's formula (she has digestive issues and cannot drink cows milk) because we had to chose either to stretch a week's worth of food into three, or go without electricity.
Sorry but there are more important things than pinning ceremonies to some of us. I would just ask them what will happen if you dont participate. If the answer is anything other than "you will fail" I would just chose to attend as a guest in support of classmates (unless I had to pay for that) and not be a part of it.
First, I had to laugh----I thought we were the only household who used the phrase 'fartknocker'...my husband and I commonly refer to our children (not in front of them, of course) as 'little fartknockers' when they are being ornery.
I do think it is absolutely ridiculous. Why couldn't you just wear your blue scrubs or for that matter, why couldn't you wear a nicer pair of pants and a nicer shirt?
What was their explanation as to WHY? I think I would have said "What is the reasoning behind this?" and waited for a good answer.....
First, I had to laugh----I thought we were the only household who used the phrase 'fartknocker'...
I do think it is absolutely ridiculous. Why couldn't you just wear your blue scrubs or for that matter, why couldn't you wear a nicer pair of pants and a nicer shirt?
We were able to wear "professional" clothing. We did light the candle and recited the FN pledge, received our pins, and that was it. Everyone from my class attended pinning, but I do know there were a couple of people from the semester before who chose not to go to pinning...
coolpeach
1,051 Posts
We did a petition in our first semester. They were thinking of moving our lab to a different campus which would have meant a lot more driving for most of us. They say that our petition had nothing to do with the fact they decided to keep our lab at our current campus, but we didn't have to move.