Question for nursing students who successfully completed the semester

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Okay, I read a thread on the number of "how many students did you lose" and I was wondering, in your honest opinion, why these drops occurred. I do allow that there are some students that may have had to withdraw due to circumstances beyond their control, and many have come back to finish at a later date. I'm curious about those students that could have remained in the program, but didn't and why.

A friend of mine just finished her first semester, and she had some interesting tales to tell. Many who had not finished, just didn't take going to nursing school serious or expected everything to be spoonfed to them.

A more positive story: She also told me about a student in her class who had delivered her baby late last week and still managed to come for her final three days later, and missed only one day and that was due to her going into preterm labor. They were able to reverse that and the student went back to her clinicals the next day. If that is not dedication, I don't know what is.

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And a few more won't pass the classes they finished. Being a Community College they have to accept all who apply. Sit on a 1 - 1 1/2 year list , take some prereqs and you are in. Some language barriers, some inteligence problems, some people just don't get it...

Our program is very difficult and has a great reputation around the NY Metro area. 100% NCLEX pass rate the last 3 or 4 years. The problem for some is getting to that holy grail...

As for the students who do well, meself included :imbar , it is a bit frustrating to have people in class who you know are never going to work out. Hopefully moving into our second semester there will be fewer of them taking up valuable time and space. I beleive everyone deserves a chance, but at what cost? It is a shame that some are wasting money that is hard for them to come by...

I hope that helps...

dave:)

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Our class started with 70 students and as when begin our fouth semester we are now a class of less than 35. We have lost students due to pregnancy, family reasons, changed their minds, and many of them are out due to failing grades. In our program, where a passing grade is 69.5, you have to wonder how anyone could fail.

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I think it's that some people just don't care. Not that I put in much study time, but there were some people who just flat out did nothing. For our final practicum in our assessment class there was one girl (a class wacko) who walked in and told the professor "I'm planning on failing and doing a retake anyway because I have to go help my friend move today so I need out asap so let's just get this over with."

I felt really bad for one guy because his vision was so bad he couldn't draw up meds or do a lot of things we had skill check offs for.

I hope no one from my school comes to this forum. :imbar

I think a lot of why people fail is because even though they know the stuff, our check offs are so nerve wracking, and there's no set criteria for grading. Someone can make a mistake with one professor supervising and the professor would (very unfairly) help them out, meanwhile another student could make the same mistake with another watching and fail for it.

I have a nice long story about that for injection check offs. :angryfire

To make it short, I didn't recap the needle before going into the room, which wasnt even on our grading sheet, and I failed under the category of "not drawing up correct dosage" even though I DID. Funny enough that was the only category that you could completely fail for, and that was the one the prof decided to count me off for even though it had nothing to do with the dose. Several others with different supervising profs didnt recap the needle and passed. Thank goodness for retakes.

And believe it or not, one professor was failing students for drawing up insulin with and INSULIN syringe and not a tuberculin syringe.

Sorry, this was a long post. I'm finished ranting. :)

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I think it's that some people just don't care. Not that I put in much study time, but there were some people who just flat out did nothing. For our final practicum in our assessment class there was one girl (a class wacko) who walked in and told the professor "I'm planning on failing and doing a retake anyway because I have to go help my friend move today so I need out asap so let's just get this over with."

I felt really bad for one guy because his vision was so bad he couldn't draw up meds or do a lot of things we had skill check offs for.

I hope no one from my school comes to this forum. :imbar

I think a lot of why people fail is because even though they know the stuff, our check offs are so nerve wracking, and there's no set criteria for grading. Someone can make a mistake with one professor supervising and the professor would (very unfairly) help them out, meanwhile another student could make the same mistake with another watching and fail for it.

I have a nice long story about that for injection check offs. :angryfire

To make it short, I didn't recap the needle before going into the room, which wasnt even on our grading sheet, and I failed under the category of "not drawing up correct dosage" even though I DID. Funny enough that was the only category that you could completely fail for, and that was the one the prof decided to count me off for even though it had nothing to do with the dose. Several others with different supervising profs didnt recap the needle and passed. Thank goodness for retakes.

And believe it or not, one professor was failing students for drawing up insulin with and INSULIN syringe and not a tuberculin syringe.

Sorry, this was a long post. I'm finished ranting. :)

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We lost people because we had a major weedout course last quarter. Our first 3 quarters are all weed out quarters. I have no idea of how many or who we lost, I guess I will see when I go back in a couple of weeks.

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We lost people because we had a major weedout course last quarter. Our first 3 quarters are all weed out quarters. I have no idea of how many or who we lost, I guess I will see when I go back in a couple of weeks.

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I'm in my second semester of my ADN. We lost 27 our first semester, and just lost another 6 after finals this semester. One girl had a baby, and missed a lot of classes and just couldn't catch up when she finally did come back. Another two had really negative attitudes through the whole semester, and are probably better off doing something else. One girl I knew nothing about. And the last two seemed dedicated, but just couldn't cut the academics. Last semester was another story...

Mitchell

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I'm in my second semester of my ADN. We lost 27 our first semester, and just lost another 6 after finals this semester. One girl had a baby, and missed a lot of classes and just couldn't catch up when she finally did come back. Another two had really negative attitudes through the whole semester, and are probably better off doing something else. One girl I knew nothing about. And the last two seemed dedicated, but just couldn't cut the academics. Last semester was another story...

Mitchell

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Specializes in CCRN.

My ADN program started with 120, we lost 22 the first quarter due to grades,must have 80% to pass, and of course life issues effected a few of those. Just finished the second quarter and am very curious as to how many we "lost" to pharmacology. I know of 10 that failed to get the required 80%. The crazy thing is most of those are from one of two instructors. It makes you wonder about her teaching ability. So far the hardest part of nursing classes is getting used to the types of test questions, and in our program the amount of skill returns to accomplish the first two quarters. I won't miss all that time practicing and demonstrating those this next quarter.

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Specializes in CCRN.

My ADN program started with 120, we lost 22 the first quarter due to grades,must have 80% to pass, and of course life issues effected a few of those. Just finished the second quarter and am very curious as to how many we "lost" to pharmacology. I know of 10 that failed to get the required 80%. The crazy thing is most of those are from one of two instructors. It makes you wonder about her teaching ability. So far the hardest part of nursing classes is getting used to the types of test questions, and in our program the amount of skill returns to accomplish the first two quarters. I won't miss all that time practicing and demonstrating those this next quarter.

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Well, I made it through the first semester! I wasn't worried, I made the grades. :chuckle We started with 68 and then 4 dropped out early and now 8 failed Fundamentals of Nursing (NUR 104) so a total of 12 gone! Who knows how many won't return after the holidays?

In a nutshell, the reasons why they didn't make it was because, some of the students are there to please someone else (mainly parents) and not themselves and have found out it takes more than they are willing to give. Some of the students were not on the ball. (they just didn't have the brains) Some were not grown up enough to handle the responsibility and some were not able to adapt to change. Some students just didn't have the comunication skills to talk to the instructors and to the patients. The list goes on.......Barbiebabe

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