Dropping like flies....now I know why

CT Pixie, BSN, RN · Oct 16, 2007

I started 7 months lago and we have exactly 1/2 of what we started with. And of those remaining, 5 of them are failing Maternity. There are one or two failing another class. They really need to step up their game as we only have a couple more tests in the classes and the tests are over 50% of our final grade. At the average some of them are at, they'd need 100's on each and every test left, a 100 on both the final and the midterms. A feat I doubt is do-able.

Most failed out for the exact reasons you stated. But add in "I partied ALL weekend long" (gee, could that be the reason you failed the test on Monday, because I for one could never concentrate or pull up info with a wicked hangover) "I have time to pull my grade up, I did it last term" My favorite is, before every test, we get a very comprehensive review. The teachers pretty much point you EXACTLY at the section they want you to zone in on. These people blow off class because "its only a review, I want to go home and nap"

Or there is the blaming of the teacher when THEY failed the test. Because "she didn't say that in class" Well the teachers don't have time to quote word for word from the book, so YOU have to go over those points to make sure YOU grasp the info!! We've been told over and over, just because I don't mention it in lecture doesn't mean you don't have to study it or that it won't be on the test.

PRESLA · Oct 16, 2007

] :madface: Brings back memories in my nursing class we started out c 20 students and in the end we finished up c 9 graduating. :angryfire It makes me so mad because I was on the waiting list for 2 yrs before I was admitted to the program and they let in students that didn't give a crap they were just there because Daddy was paying for it granted some of them the first day of clinical doing just basic stuff like dsg changes grossed them out so they bailed.:icon_roll My spouse gets shivers when I talk about all the interesting stuff I see Love my career.

Lisa :nurse:

CseMgr1, ASN, RN · Oct 16, 2007

Only 46 out of the 120 who originally enrolled in my class graduated.

It separated the women from the girls, that's for sure!

PRESLA · Oct 16, 2007

]:rollAmen sister!!

Lisa

llg, PhD, RN · Oct 16, 2007

Thank you for this thread. There are so many people on allnurses who automatically assume that whenever students fail a course, it must be due to bad teaching. It's the teacher's fault! People especially say that when several people get bad grades in the same class. They assume it must be the teacher's fault.

As you have pointed out ... sometimes, it's not. Sometimes, students deserve to fail a class ... and sometimes many students deserve to fail a class.

Yes, there are some bad teachers out there ... and sometimes teachers are unfair ... but too often, members who read the posts about the student failures jump to that conclusion without even considering the possibility that perhaps the student did not do a very good job and earned the grade they received.

I am teaching a course this semester and expect 10-15% of the class to fail it. In fact, I have a few students who have done so poorly in the first third of the class that I doubt they can bring their grades up to passing even if they get A's on everything that remains. But it's not because the work is unreasonable: I have about 35% of the class with A averages and most of the others are getting B's. It's that the bottom 20% of the class is not handing their assignments in on time, missing test questions that were blatantly given to them in class, etc. They are actively throwing away points that they will need to receive a passing grade as if they didn't care at all.

I don't understand it.

Trauma Columnist · Oct 16, 2007

llg - I did nursing school as an adult. However, I will say that when I did nursing school right out of high school, I was a major screw-up. One day I got fed up with school (with only one semester left to get my RN), quit going to class, joined the Navy and shipped out within 48 hours. Now mind you, I didn't DROP the classes, just quit going. Had a 0.7gpa when I decided 12 years later to go back. Needless to say I had to not only re-take every single class, I was "invited" to talk with just about instructor as to how I had rectified my earlier lifestyle choices! Ugh - talk about humbling.

Sometimes I think that when we are a little younger we go into things w/o thinking things through. That was what happened in my case at least. Glad I grew up and wised up (to some extent anyway - lol).

jewelshouse · Oct 16, 2007

Talk about a wake-up call. I am still on my pre-req's but from everything I've heard there are lots of nursing students that don't make the cut for one reason or another.

My hope is that most of the ones not making it is because they didn't put the time in needed and didn't take it seriously.

As a 30 something student, I can only hope that I will be up to par when it comes to nursing school. Kind of makes a person worry though if you know what I mean.

So I guess my question is, how many of the students that drop out really tried and just couldn't cut it?

luvmy3kids · Oct 16, 2007

llg - I did nursing school as an adult. However, I will say that when I did nursing school right out of high school, I was a major screw-up. One day I got fed up with school (with only one semester left to get my RN), quit going to class, joined the Navy and shipped out within 48 hours. Now mind you, I didn't DROP the classes, just quit going. Had a 0.7gpa when I decided 12 years later to go back. Needless to say I had to not only re-take every single class, I was "invited" to talk with just about instructor as to how I had rectified my earlier lifestyle choices! Ugh - talk about humbling.
Sometimes I think that when we are a little younger we go into things w/o thinking things through. That was what happened in my case at least. Glad I grew up and wised up (to some extent anyway - lol).

I totally agree with this. While I didn't do terribly in HS or college (the first time around), I really didn't care at the time. I don't know why. I just didn't seem to care. I managed to graduate with a 3.2 GPA from college, but I could have done much better if I would have tried harder.

I think 18 yrs old is too young to have to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. I switched my major from Sociology to Psych to English to Corrections to El Ed back to Corrections and graduated with Corrections and Law Enforcement. Then I decided I wanted to be a dental asst. (ha) that lasted all of one semester.

Now... here I am... 15 yrs later and I finally have realized that nursing is what I want to do. Only this time I'm mature enough to really know it's what I want and I'm doing everything I can to get the best education and learn from this experience.

The people that don't care about their education frustrate me terribly. Especially since there is such a big demand for nursing school and there are a ton of qualified applicants that get rejected only to be beaten out by someone that eventually drops out anyway. But I need to keep reminding myself that I was there once too and while I don't think it's fair... they have a right to learn the hard way (just like I did).

jewelshouse · Oct 16, 2007

Now... here I am... 15 yrs later and I finally have realized that nursing is what I want to do. Only this time I'm mature enough to really know it's what I want and I'm doing everything I can to get the best education and learn from this experience.
The people that don't care about their education frustrate me terribly. Especially since there is such a big demand for nursing school and there are a ton of qualified applicants that get rejected only to be beaten out by someone that eventually drops out anyway. But I need to keep reminding myself that I was there once too and while I don't think it's fair... they have a right to learn the hard way (just like I did).

Right there with you, my gpa my first go around in college was a 2.4 YUCK, I dropped out after 1 1/2 years. Now I am back at the same cc and that gpa is coming back to haunt me.

Yes I remember being 18, I was in no position to decide what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. My main goal was to have fun and have enough money to do those fun things.

MB37 · Oct 16, 2007

I don't know the exact number of people we've lost, but they must all fall into the categories hopefull presented. No one that I know has left/failed out of the program, although one girl is considering it because she really truly hates hospitals and knew when she started it that she didn't want to work in one. No one that comes to class every day, does at least most of the reading, participates at least occasionally, and makes a real genuine effort has failed out of my program so far. Some may have failed a test, or gotten used to not making As, but they're all still here. Next semester is supposed to be the real killer though...

SarasotaRN2b · Oct 16, 2007

As I start my nursing school journey, I had been nervous after reading a lot of the posts but I definitely appreciate this one. At 42, I'm going to school to learn how to be a nurse and while the learning won't stop when I am finished with school, I do know that I have to be responsible for my keeping up and learning. It's not going to be easy, but it is going to be so worth it when I finish.