How horrible

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Dec 17, 2005

But the classic mistake some people made in my class was not building enough points going into the final. With the class before us ... everybody failed the final. And everybody in our class knew this .. but some people didn't take this seriously until the last month. They did do a lot better on the last two tests but, since the final was comprehensive, and they didn't study the earlier material all that well, the final was a disaster for them.

This is part of the collegiate thing. A lot of people, I think, don't understand the difference between high school and studying at a college level. Most high schools don't prepare students for the kind of studying they are going to have to do in college. If nursing students haven't figured out this difference after doing their pre-requisites, that is sad. But, then again, it's part of the collegiate experience. It's not just nursing school, it's college level learning. You have to work hard, just like at a job, to get through nursing school. Those who don't realize the importance of racking up as many high points as possible right off the bat just have to endure the consequences.

Sheri257 · Dec 17, 2005

This is part of the collegiate thing. A lot of people, I think, don't understand the difference between high school and studying at a college level. Most high schools don't prepare students for the kind of studying they are going to have to do in college. If nursing students haven't figured out this difference after doing their pre-requisites, that is sad. But, then again, it's part of the collegiate experience. It's not just nursing school, it's college level learning. You have to work hard, just like at a job, to get through nursing school. Those who don't realize the importance of racking up as many high points as possible right off the bat just have to endure the consequences.

Well ... there's a huge difference between pre-reqs and nursing school, that's for sure. In pre-reqs you could probably still get by without doing the reading. Of course, that doesn't cut it in nursing school.

Although this semester was also really screwed up. They were always testing us on material that hadn't been assigned. And they were using mutiple reference sources ... some of which they told us about, others they didn't, which often had conflicting information on key points. They would often tell you one thing in lecture, and then put a completely different answer on the test. Overall it was very disorganized and it made studying all the more difficult.

But even with the chaos ... if you did study the entire time ... you did ok. But you absolutely had to work your butt off at all times to build that cushion, because the lead instructor was notorious for her lethal finals. She certainly lived up to that reputation with our final exam today.

:coollook:

Hoozdo, ADN · Dec 17, 2005

But even with the chaos ... if you did study the entire time ... you did ok. But you absolutely had to work your butt off at all times to build that cushion, because the lead instructor was notorious for her lethal finals. She certainly lived up to that reputation with our final exam today.

I just finished my last semester of an ADN program. I find the above post very true. My class size was 29 students and it ended up that 5 students failed. That is a 17% failure rate in the last semester! Imagine, making it through nursing school only to fail the last semester. The weeding out process never stops :angryfire I had banked up enough points that I only needed a 43 percent to pass the final and I still studied my butt off. Crazy :coollook:

**RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN** · Dec 17, 2005

How sad indeed. I am starting nursing in Jan. so don't have input. I do know that each semester 1 or 2 fail that it it. I go to a small private college and the intructors are very supportive and helpful (once you are in the program). It is much different while in pre-nursing.

Roseyposey · Dec 17, 2005

The failure ratein my program was about 30% after the first semester.

HeartsOpenWide, RN · Dec 17, 2005

I wonder why so many people are failing. Is it because of bad teaching, or is a side effect of the nursing shortage. I remember about two years after I announced that I was going to save up to go to nursing school, they announced the nursing shortage for the near future and started advertising nursing. By the time I had the money to return to school tons of people were also wanting to go to nursing school. Many of which surprised me, and uncountable people who are "going in it for the money"...I wounder if this big boom of nursing students and those who want to be nursing students is a direct result...do you know what I mean. Five years ago none of those people would consider nursing, but when the schools and health care started advertising nursing as a big money maker, and schools/ government, made it easier for people going into nursing to go (grants, financial aid, scholarships etc) people came out of the wood work. Maybe people that just arn't cut out for it...

Sheri257 · Dec 17, 2005

I wonder why so many people are failing. Is it because of bad teaching, or is a side effect of the nursing shortage.

There are bad teachers, no doubt about it. But I don't know how you could go through any program and not have bad teachers, at least occassionally. It's the law of averages.

The failure rate in my class right now it about 30 percent because the pass rate was raised from 70 to 75 percent. A lot of people would be passing right now if the old 70 percent standard was still in effect.

But the main reason people fail, IMHO, is they don't read. They don't read the syllabus (which is over a hundred pages) and they don't read the books. I don't know how many times I hear .... "we didn't cover that in class!" or "they didn't go over that!" ...

And I have to point out .... yes, they did. They just didn't spoon feed us all the material in lecture. It's in the syllabus and in the books. Even if the teacher isn't always fair, they almost always cover themselves in one form or another with the syllabus and assigned reading. But too many people don't bother to read it.

:coollook:

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Dec 17, 2005

A lot of you are right. Time for spoon feeding is over. You know, if you can't read a syllabus and follow the directions in that, how can people expect to be nurses? There is no one spoon feeding information to you when you are RN working at a job. You have to be self-motivated enough to know where to go to find information you need to solve problems that come up. Employers expect RNs to be autonomous and not require much supervision. I think that idea gets lost somewhere in the shuffle. It's also a hard concept for school to teach students. Instructors have only so much equipment to work with to try to get these ideas across. One of the things I realized as I got older and finished up my BSN program was that all these school assignments that students (including me at times) complain about are really exercises designed to help stimulate a person's thinking and develop their skill in where to go to find answers to their problems. Employers don't expect you to know everything, but they do expect you to know where to start looking to find the things you are needing to know. That is why nurses make the big bucks--their ability to THINK. And, yet, I'll read post after post after post where students are doing everything they can to resist become those autonomous individuals. Nursing is not just giving baths and bedpans. This ability to think and solve problems is the meat of the profession. Students who don't read their textbooks and don't read instructions are probably not going to read doctor's orders or hospital policies and procedures either which will steer them right into the frustration of not understanding why they are having such a hard transition going from student to working nurse. I was thinking last night after I made my last post to this thread that those students who drag their feet about studying and then end up not having enough points to pass the class are also going to do the same thing as RNs and are going to have a very difficult time of mastering time management skills. There are no short cuts. Some people, however, just adamantly refuse to believe that! They are setting themselves up to fail. :twocents:

nfsaldal · Dec 22, 2005

I lost several friends. Three dropped out right before the drop date in November and at least 5 others went to the final exam needing very high grades. They didn't make the cut, the final was brutal and the high score was a 90. Our class started with a total of 36 plus 11 LVNs that joined us in August. So now we're down to at most 28 of the original class maybe less

ortess1971 · Dec 22, 2005

On a more positive note, I just found out that a friend of mine, who was borderline, passed.:) This girl is smart and she will be an awesome nurse but she gets horrible test anxiety. She told me she throws up on the morning of an exam. We had started studying together and were using NCLEX books to study-she was getting most of these questions right and she is excellent clinically(she's an LPN) On the ATI-she pulled scores in the 90th percentiles-I think the fact that the NCLEX and ATI questions are easier than our exam questions should be looked at...Guess study groups do help-we are definitely going to do them for next semester!!

Butterflybee · Dec 22, 2005

Geez and yikes :no:

NurseLatteDNP, MSN, DNP, RN · Dec 22, 2005

You all are right. It is a completely different style of exams. I remember my first exam, I was thinking how am I going to pick between 2 right answers. After the test the teacher said that all of our exams will be like that, we just have to be the nurse and pick what we would do. It helped me to picture myself in that situation, instead of just reading the question.