Helping Classmates

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I am a very serious, hardworking student in my first semester. Thus far I have done very well on all of my exams. I make it a practice to study alone as my past experiences have shown, I usually wind up teaching instead of studying. Recently there were a couple of people in my class that seemed to really want my help prior to our last exam. They were always very friendly towards me. Against my instinct, I met with them. I showed them not only how to study, but also tried to advise them about how to deal with their stress. I truly opened myself up to them to help them. Well, not only did I not receive a simple "thank you", but a couple of days after the exam I ran into them and said;"so...did it help, did you do ok"? One was not polite enough to even look up from what she was writing to acknowledge me. The other one said she did well as a result of my help...reluctantly. I did not need to help them, nor did I do it with any expectations. I have a very high average. They told me they were struggling and needed help. They took everything I taught them and showed their study group. Now they don't even speak to me. I have pulled way back from everyone. I am not in school to win friends and influence people. That experience really showed me a giant hole in not only the heart of humanity, but in the human psyche. I feel their behavior is bordering on a mental disorder...:redbeathe Have any of you had similar experiences? I would appreciate your thoughts.

I get very good grades in school, but we don't have study groups, per se. However, we do study together about an hour or two before a test to top off our knowledge and understanding.

To the people who are getting good grades, have helped others, and got negative feedback on it, I have a question: during the study group, was there ever anything that you didn't understand or know and did you ask your study group for help? The reason I ask is because nobody knows everything (in my experience) and if you treat a study group like a two-way study session instead of a one-way study session, the group dynamics usually go much better.

I'm not saying that you should make up questions to ask just for the benefit of group dynamics, but I just can't imagine that there is never a question in one's mind about the material that another student (regardless of grades) can't help you with, you know?

I didn't walk in to a study group as if I knew it all. Yes, I asked a question of my study group and none of them could answer it because they didn't even do the reading. In fact, my study group fell apart because none of the other students did the required reading first and expected to ace the tests based on my knowledge. When that didn't happen, they got mad at me, when they should have been mad at themselves for not putting forth their own effort.

And, yes, I did learn a very good lesson. Study groups are NOT FOR ME and there's nothing wrong with that. :)

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Specializes in Oncology/Geriatrics/Holistic.

...nor for me. Thank you.

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Specializes in Emergency Dept. Trauma. Pediatrics.
Have you ever thought that maybe someone DOES know something you don't know, even if the total amount of subject matter knowledge you possess may be greater?

I think THIS (bolded) is what makes group dynamics fall apart into back-biting and sniping at each other. Walking into a study group thinking that you're all that shows, whether one thinks so or not.

This right here. I have 2 good friends I study with. I have no problem saying that I have no doubt they know a lot more than I do. They are text book readers, I am not. We usually score within a point or two within each other on the tests. Anyway, the reason we study together and it works well is we think differently. They are always focused on certain aspects and take different things from the lecture. So they bring up things I didn't think about or even think was important, and I do the same. Come test time there will be questions over things I brought up and they brought up. Had we not studied together we might have missed out on some of that stuff.

So even though they might have more book smarts than I do. I still bring something to the group.

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I didn't walk in to a study group as if I knew it all. Yes, I asked a question of my study group and none of them could answer it because they didn't even do the reading. In fact, my study group fell apart because none of the other students did the required reading first and expected to ace the tests based on my knowledge

This is pretty much what happened to me. People asked me for tutoring help, so no I didn't have questions to ask them (I'd done the reading and reviewed the material prior). I was really mad that people didn't bother to read the textbooks but thought that they could take MY time to get them up to speed, faster & easier than doing the reading. As if I was supposed to read the text but they weren't. LOL yeah right...

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The "Group Dynamics Stuff" is part of nursing school. Its not enough just to do well on your exams......you need to do well in the group setting too. When you are working in the acute care setting with a team of doctors and nurses you will need to know how to function within the group....hence the reason for the group dynamics. Not sure about your school but mine requires group projects just about every semester. This semesters is a teaching learning group project. Part of the grade is how we work as a group. We have to grade each other as participants and others will grade us as a group on our presentation. Isolation will not work in my school and it will not work in the healthcare setting.

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Specializes in IMCU.

To the OP...

If you really had no expectation(s) when you helped these people why the problem with how they behaved?

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The "Group Dynamics Stuff" is part of nursing school. Its not enough just to do well on your exams......you need to do well in the group setting too. When you are working in the acute care setting with a team of doctors and nurses you will need to know how to function within the group....hence the reason for the group dynamics. Not sure about your school but mine requires group projects just about every semester. This semesters is a teaching learning group project. Part of the grade is how we work as a group. We have to grade each other as participants and others will grade us as a group on our presentation. Isolation will not work in my school and it will not work in the healthcare setting.

I agree with you on this...to a point.

I do get along with some of my classmates, although I do keep it superficial (I ask how they/their kids/husbands are doing). I don't go out and party with anyone (not much of a partier anyway since I'm a single mom).

I get along great with all the nurses I work with, co-workers in my current jobs and past jobs and my nursing school instructors. I do have friends outside of nursing school and have friends from pre-reqs. For some reason, nursing school is hyper-competitive. I've also noticed people start snipping at each other (like in the hallways prior to class starting) that had nothing to do with me. Maybe everyone is under so much stress, which I understand...I'm there too. Anyway, it's not so much to do with personality as preference and I just prefer not to study in groups or make lifelong friends in nursing school.

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In my pre nursing classes (I'm not in NS yet), I had a problem similar to this. I find it better just to study alone and if you have any questions, ask a teacher. I have been able to do very well, and what is the point of studying with people/tutoring people when they do not know as much as you do? You aren't benefitting...only they are.

If anything, studying or helping others who do not know as much about the subject matter as I do helps me to get my own mini-review of the material in. It's a win-win situation (for me). However, I definitely do not go out of my way to help those who are spending hours of class time playing on the computer, iPhone, etc. posting Facebook updates during class time....

When they ask me for help, I just give a blank look and tell them that I haven't been able to study that part yet, although what I really want to say is, "get off the fricking electronic device and at the very least, pay attention!" :D

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Personally, I find study groups utterly useless. From my own experience in school, I have found there are two types of students:

(a) ambitious, self-motivated students who sacrifice in other areas of their lives and would do just fine on their own. These people generally get nothing out of trying to participate in a study group, and inevitably end up wasting time that would have been more productive for them on their own. They'll get their A with or without the study group, but will waste less time without it. During group projects, this is the student in the group who does 90% of the research and actual work of the project, while the others receive equal credit when the job is done. This is the person I would want to work with in practice, or whom I would want as a nurse if I were a patient.

(b) Unfocused, lazy, selfish students who don't want to spend the time reading the books, doing the research, and learning the concepts. They have other distractions in their personal lives with romantic drama and critically important business on Facebook that requires their constant attention via their cellphones, which seem to have become surgically attached distal appendages. They need study groups in order to use the alpha students as a filter to sift through and put together for them the overwhelming amount of info that is thrown at you in nursing school. The alpha students aren't their Facebook friends, so there is no loyalty, gratitude, or even recognition once help has been rendered. If they don't do well, they'll blame the alpha who wasted time trying to help them. I'd rather not work with this person in practice or have them as my nurse when I'm a patient.

What irritates me more than anything is that the type A students are the ones most frequently criticized for not "being a team player". No, a TEAM is a group of people who work together and pull their own weight by merit of equal effort. I love working on a real team, and in fact, I do it every day: I'm in EMS and I work directly with a partner all day, every day.

Eventually, the real world of the workplace weeds out the type B's (if they made it through school in the first place). Teamwork is necessary in healthcare and it works great when you have solid group of dependable individual contributors, but ultimately we all succeed or fail on our own merits (unless you work in a union environment where individual excellence is less important).

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Specializes in Med-Surg, NICU.
Have you ever thought that maybe someone DOES know something you don't know, even if the total amount of subject matter knowledge you possess may be greater?

I think THIS (bolded) is what makes group dynamics fall apart into back-biting and sniping at each other. Walking into a study group thinking that you're all that shows, whether one thinks so or not.

I will study WITH people, but I will not tutor them. That only takes away from my personal studying time. And again, why waste time tutoring the C/D student when you can be studying WITH people who are getting high marks as well?

I try helping students who couldn't do basic Algebra in a Chemistry course, and all it did was deter me from getting ahead.

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Personally, I find study groups utterly useless. From my own experience in school, I have found there are two types of students:

(a) ambitious, self-motivated students who sacrifice in other areas of their lives and would do just fine on their own. These people generally get nothing out of trying to participate in a study group, and inevitably end up wasting time that would have been more productive for them on their own. They'll get their A with or without the study group, but will waste less time without it. During group projects, this is the student in the group who does 90% of the research and actual work of the project, while the others receive equal credit when the job is done. This is the person I would want to work with in practice, or whom I would want as a nurse if I were a patient.

(b) Unfocused, lazy, selfish students who don't want to spend the time reading the books, doing the research, and learning the concepts. They have other distractions in their personal lives with romantic drama and critically important business on Facebook that requires their constant attention via their cellphones, which seem to have become surgically attached distal appendages. They need study groups in order to use the alpha students as a filter to sift through and put together for them the overwhelming amount of info that is thrown at you in nursing school. The alpha students aren't their Facebook friends, so there is no loyalty, gratitude, or even recognition once help has been rendered. If they don't do well, they'll blame the alpha who wasted time trying to help them. I'd rather not work with this person in practice or have them as my nurse when I'm a patient.

What irritates me more than anything is that the type A students are the ones most frequently criticized for not "being a team player". No, a TEAM is a group of people who work together and pull their own weight by merit of equal effort. I love working on a real team, and in fact, I do it every day: I'm in EMS and I work directly with a partner all day, every day.

Eventually, the real world of the workplace weeds out the type B's (if they made it through school in the first place). Teamwork is necessary in healthcare and it works great when you have solid group of dependable individual contributors, but ultimately we all succeed or fail on our own merits (unless you work in a union environment where individual excellence is less important).

You hit the nail on the head! :yeah::yeah::yeah::yeah:

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