First day of my senior year in nursing school... RANT

[CrazierThanYou]

Today was our first day of our senior year of nursing school. My school is in a partnership with another school so we do things a little differently. We go to one school for the first year, and another school for the second year. The second school is 2 or more hours away from us, depending on where we live. Not too bad, we can carpool.

We arrived at a new school with new classmates and new instructors and new rules. The first shock is that we have assigned seats, as if we are a group of new Kindergarteners. We've been using our laptops for the past year. Today we are told that whatever we do on them will be monitored and should we be caught, the laptop will be taken away. Is this elementary school? During first year, we were encouraged to buy a hand held device such as an iPod touch. I did so. Surprise! We aren't allowed to have them either in class or at clinical. All that money for devices, subscriptions, and apps? Wasted. No food or drinks allowed during class. We should try to visit the restroom only during break. During all this, they reminded us repeatedly that "we are all adults here". Hilarious.

One of the instructors seemed to have a mantra. It went a little like this: 'We own you.' It was repeated often. I'm sorry, but no you DON'T own me.

Upon arriving home, I reviewed the clinical schedule. We had been told they would take our travels into consideration. Clearly, that was the joke of the century. The nearly $4 a gallon gas prices only made it exponentially funnier. Hilarious when you consider 4 hours of drive time PER day. And, we are scheduled in such a way that our carpooling idea is historical relic.

Very frustrated!

[mamayogibear]

WOW!! That is so lame that you have to go to a different school for the second part of your program. I don't really get why you have to go to a different campus. Is the first part of the program at a CC and then the last part at a State University? I'm sorry your schedule sucks so much, I hope you can figure out something that will make it work. Is there any way you could stay in the town where you have clinical the night before clinical so you don't have to go there do your paperwork then go home then leave in the morning for clinical to begin?

[BelleNscrubs04]

Wow! That's a lot to adjust to. The idea of two schools partnering is intriguing but in this case doesn't seem to be coordinated very well. 4 hours spent in the car seems unreasonable too, especially if they make car pooling difficult. What did the other nursing students have to say about it? Is this a new program they are trying? If so, maybe someone with common sense will step in and make some adjustments that will make it more reasonable.

[CrazierThanYou]

They've been doing it this way for years but there is a lot of turnover in the second year instructors so you never really know what you're going to get.

There seems to be no cohesion between the two schools whatsoever. Our care plans will be different, our tests are different, etc, etc, etc.

Yes, we are considering getting a hotel room and staying. It would probably be cheaper than all that gas! I don't want to stay away from my family but I may have to in order to make it easier on me.