Failed last semester and it hurts

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Just found out I Failed my last semester by a point and a half. I ran out of time and was unable to do the last 4 math questions on the final, if I had gotten those done I would have passed.. I've failed a course before (also by a point), which you can only do once in this program..so I'd have to start all over now. I really can't see myself repeating the entire program as it has been horrible for my anxiety/panic disorder and it's taken time from my child. I have a meeting to review the test. I am so upset and can't stop crying, this has been my dream and I was so close to graduation. I feel like a failure, my son was rooting for me, my family has poured money into this for me and I feel like I've let them down. I LOVE Nursing and would hate to have put in 2 years of hard work for nothing. I want to do everything I can before giving up on this.

What are my options to fight for this grade?

If I don't have any, where do I go from here?

Thats scary

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I am an older student, mother of two (one welcomed in the middle of nursing school), suffer from a harsh home life, was a single mom for a very long time, and suffer from bad anxiety and OCD....I never gave up on my dream and ive made serious sacrifices instead of excuses! It aggrivates me to no end when I hear students wanting to fight a grade bc they failed or making excuses. My struggle has been real! And I just want to thank you and the previous posters for keeping it real!! The truth is the thruth and as nurses, it is our moral duty to not sugar coat the truth!

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I feel for you, I failed my fall semester, and am lucky enough to get back in for the summer semester. I was upset like you, but you have to let go and set up another "plan of attack". I spent almost 2 weeks thinking of every way to continue on to the next semester. Those weeks would have been better spent studying.

Just something to add to this conversation.

We all have hardships during nursing school. My husband went in for a gastric sleeve on my second day of class. My commute to school is 1.5 hours (one way), and an additional 45 minutes to the hospital he was at. So I would wake up at 4am, head to class, leave school around 4pm and head to the hospital. When he came home from the hospital, his mother (a nurse of 45 years, mind you) would give me a hand off report, like they would in the hospital and I had to tend to him, while getting ready to go to bed and setting up my car to get to class the next day.

I don't feel that what anyone said on here is harsh. I stayed in the hospital with my husband for his gastric bypass (last month) and if you fell these comments are harsh, then you wouldn't want to be his nurse. He told a nurse in a very stern voice "get out of my room, I don't want you anywhere near me, get someone else. If you walk back in here, I'm walking out". Which, was very polite compared to what he told me what he was originally going to say. That nurse left the room and told the other nurse she was "scared to walk near" his room. As a student, I know that when I walk into my job, whatever happened at home, or on the commute, or whatever, is dropped at the door. This is a job where you can't have a bad day.

Lastly, you're going to have doctors screaming at you for things you didn't even do wrong. For instance, my professor was yelled at for calling the doctor at 2 am to give him important blood test results. A lot of my professors have admitted they've had doctors make them cry because they yelled at them so badly.

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I am an older student, mother of two (one welcomed in the middle of nursing school), suffer from a harsh home life, was a single mom for a very long time, and suffer from bad anxiety and OCD....I never gave up on my dream and ive made serious sacrifices instead of excuses! It aggrivates me to no end when I hear students wanting to fight a grade bc they failed or making excuses. My struggle has been real! And I just want to thank you and the previous posters for keeping it real!! The truth is the thruth and as nurses, it is our moral duty to not sugar coat the truth!

See my post above. My teachers fought for it with me, it's what you do for the things you care about. You would fight for your patients and your children wouldnt you? Kudos to you, I do love hearing success stories such as yours and I'm glad you did so well despite the circumstances. You should be proud of yourself. However I wish you would keep in mind that everyone is different. I have seen people drop out because they were going through a custody battle and seen others go through car accidents,court, raising children, a few family deaths and still make it to the end. I never assumed those who dropped or failed out early were weak or making excuses even if i was going through the same and passed. People cope differently. There is much more to my story than anxiety and raising a child. I have been through a lot during this program and prior to it. I have made mostly As and Bs in most classes aside from the 2 I have failed. I did not receive the same educational foundation (prior to college) as my peers and have worked incredibly hard to get here.. Open your mind a little, not everybody copes or absorbs information the same way. Did you ever notice in school that some people could simply hear the lecture, review once or twice and make an A, while others would study 5+ hours a day to get the same effect? All of these things play a role. Your level of struggle may be very different than someone elses even if you both have a mental illness and children.. My struggle has been just as real as yours. Just because I failed, fought for it and will have to try again does not mean I made excuses and didnt make sacrifices along the way. I do not mean it negatively, you are a Nurse, I know you think critically and are able to see more than one angle to a situation.

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I feel for you, I failed my fall semester, and am lucky enough to get back in for the summer semester. I was upset like you, but you have to let go and set up another "plan of attack". I spent almost 2 weeks thinking of every way to continue on to the next semester. Those weeks would have been better spent studying.

Just something to add to this conversation.

We all have hardships during nursing school. My husband went in for a gastric sleeve on my second day of class. My commute to school is 1.5 hours (one way), and an additional 45 minutes to the hospital he was at. So I would wake up at 4am, head to class, leave school around 4pm and head to the hospital. When he came home from the hospital, his mother (a nurse of 45 years, mind you) would give me a hand off report, like they would in the hospital and I had to tend to him, while getting ready to go to bed and setting up my car to get to class the next day.

I don't feel that what anyone said on here is harsh. I stayed in the hospital with my husband for his gastric bypass (last month) and if you fell these comments are harsh, then you wouldn't want to be his nurse. He told a nurse in a very stern voice "get out of my room, I don't want you anywhere near me, get someone else. If you walk back in here, I'm walking out". Which, was very polite compared to what he told me what he was originally going to say. That nurse left the room and told the other nurse she was "scared to walk near" his room. As a student, I know that when I walk into my job, whatever happened at home, or on the commute, or whatever, is dropped at the door. This is a job where you can't have a bad day.

Lastly, you're going to have doctors screaming at you for things you didn't even do wrong. For instance, my professor was yelled at for calling the doctor at 2 am to give him important blood test results. A lot of my professors have admitted they've had doctors make them cry because they yelled at them so badly.

Sorry to hear about your Husband. I don't believe everyone was harsh. Just 1 or 2 people who made remarks and assumptions that were uncalled for and rude. I have heard the same from professors. I said it before but the classroom setting is where I struggle. I learn pretty quickly and do pretty well in the hospital. I precepted in the ICU and had my fair share of Pts who were not so pleasant lol but I can handle it. I am working on my plan of attack as we speak. Still hurts a little as it is fresh but im moving forward. Thank you for the insight!

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Specializes in Critical care.
I came here for support and advice from compassionate nurses and/or students. Any of you who gave that, thank you.

For those of you jumping to conclussions..there are no words. How closed minded and judgmental. I know what you are talking about, I have seen fellow students do it.. but you don't know how many questions there were, how much time there was, what has occured in life during this program, or what kind of person or student i am. I accepted full responsibility the 1st time and didnt dispute it to anyone. I would not try to fight for it if i didnt love it and believe there was an injustice somewhere. I hope to God, If I or a loved one is ever sick I hope they never get a Nurse like some of you. Do you assume all patients with lung cancer smoked too? Tell them they did something wrong and to deal with it?

Up until the OP made these comments everyone had been very nice. True, what they said probably wasn't what she wanted to hear, BUT it was not nasty or uncompassionate. We get posts all the time of students complaining and explaining why they failed or why an instructor is unfair, etc. and as soon as they hear something they don't want to hear they start screaming NETY, saying how's horrible a poster is and how they wouldn't want them for a nurse, etc.

The cold hard truth is what a patient needs to hear sometimes. My uncle had a CABG and AAA repaired and is darn lucky to be alive. He hasn't smoked a day since he got the diagnosis and was told his lifestyle habits were the biggest contributor. We tell it to our patients BECAUSE we care- BECAUSE we want our patients to get better and have healthy, happy lives. I've listened to a respiratory therapist flat out tell a young asthmatic smoker in the hospital that it's not a matter of IF but WHEN she'll be oxygen dependent (by the time she's in her 40's) if she continued down the road she was on and didn't give up smoking. Another nurse on my unit and I were educating a patient on his type 2 diabetes and the complications he was experiencing and that would continue to worsen if he didn't start taking it seriously. We didn't get through to him, but we did have a positive impact on his wife and sister who were also there (and also type 2 diabetics). The sister said she was making an appointment with her doctor ASAP and was going to do everything she was told to do. Sometimes the cold hard truth and scaring the crap out of someone is the best thing for them.

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Aceofhearts,

I see what you are saying. As i said previously i also believe the truth can be a compassionate thing to do but that is not what was done here by some. To give the cold hard truth to someone you need to know it first. Im very new here. It may be something you see often but it is not fair to conclude all students who fail are out to blame others and bash instructors. It is not what i came here to do and i apologize if i said anything to make anyone believe that. There were a few assumptions tossed around and that was my response. My post you mentioned was not about hearing the cold hard truth and hating it. It was to thank those who did offer solid advice or support and to say it isnt okay to categorize people just because its something youve seen before (if not all the time). Everyone is different. Clearly i could have phrased it better the other day but that was the point i was trying to get across. It is not a kind or compassionate thing to do to assume. Maybe it didnt appear that there was a lack of compassion from where you are and thats okay. But on the receiving end it didnt feel good. And people should know that if they truly have good intentions and are trying to be compassionate or helpful, which i do believe most people here were trying to be.

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I hope you find happiness one day.

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Breathe, give yourself time to be upset, but with that being said EVERYTHING good or bad happens for a reason. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, go back and kick some booty if that's really your dream career. You can do it.

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I would hurt too. I feel your pain - so near, yet so far.

However, although some of the replies have been a little salty to say the least, they do have a point; if you were so close to the edge on failing, then it really wasn't down to that one final exam...if you had built up a buffer from high grades on previous exams then one or two extra points wouldn't be the difference between pass or fail.

Having said that, to be so close to passing is brutal. I would be sick to my stomach too. I definitely feel it is worth speaking to your Professors and Nursing Director. It's worth a shot. The worst they can say is no....but at least then you tried. If they won't budge, perhaps at the very least they can offer you some guidance as to what your options are. It seems so sad to fail out after so much work and right at the very end.

Could you transfer your credits to a different school?

I wish you the best!

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Specializes in SICU, trauma, neuro.

Reading klone's and meanmaryjean's posts, I don't see jumping to conclusions... it's math. If you were pulling a 95% in the class and THEN ran out of time for the math problems, you would still be in a solid B range, at least.

I once took a class where I was a day late in submitting a final paper. Like a fool I just submitted it a day late and ASSumed I'd be docked points. Well since I hadn't spoken to the prof and asked for an extension, I got a zero. I ended up with a C+ in the class, because up until that point I had like 95-98% in the class. Had I been pulling an 80% and then gotten a zero? I wouldn't have passed.

Nursing is a tough world, with very real risks for not knowing our stuff... and while I hate it for you that you struggle with anxiety and panic, patients don't care. They need us to know our stuff -- not to eke out a passing grade on a successful appeal.

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Specializes in Nephrology Home Therapies, Wound Care, Foot Care..

You said that you have panic disorder- are you registered with your school's s disability services? If not, you should be. You would likely get times and a half for testing. It might be worth going to talk to them. Probably water under the bridge now, but maybe not. If you are in a community college, another cc program may accept the credits you have. I do knows one nurse that had that happen.

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