I've had a conversation with a girl who is in year 2 of nursing. I asked her if nursing is as competitive as its reputation says it is. She agreed that it was competitive, but said that it was mostly the amount of work and not how challenging the work was.
I'm just confused by that. How is a heavy course load inherently competitive?
I just wanted to clarify what exactly the "competitive" nature of nursing entails exactly. Do your peers try to ambush you? Do your professors neglect you if you are behind your peers? Are your classes large and you have to fight to get needed attention from your teacher? How much is a "lot" of coursework?
If you are in Ontario the wait times won't be too bad. Had you started looking at schools yet?
I am an RPN in Ontario.I haven't seen any RN programs that are part time but there are RPN programs that are part time and then there are part time bridge programs as well.
I have my last semester coming up in January, and I am so ready yo be done!! Nursing school was harder in the begginting in my opinion. After I adjusted, it became routine. Nursing is competitive to get into, but I only applied to my university, and I didn't have to wait to get in. I guess because of my GPA, volunteer work and application, ect. Plus I took my prerequistes at the university I was applying too, so I had an advantage in that way. I applied the semester before and got in the very next semester, and my school is supposedly competitive. It's ranked 25th , I think, nationwide for the undergrad bachelors program. So, not everyone has to wait to get into school. It all depends on a bunch of factors: your GPA, your essay/resume if you have to write one, your application, ect. Be the best candidate you can be.
Concerning the actual classes (in nursing school), it seems students compete with each other for no reason. "What grade did you get?", "Did you pass?", "What has your clinical instructor said about you?" blahblah.. it's like they are trying to compare their own standing against others'. This is just my experience.
If becoming a nurse isn't something you want with all you heart, then you will never make it through nursing school.
If on the other hand you suddenly have a calling and are drawn to nursing as if you have no choice at all yourself in the matter, then welcome to the club. :-)
OP, while there are many who share Wyrm's opinion, I'm not one of them.
Nursing school is demanding but not something which I found required "wanting it with all my heart."
Likewise, it is perfectly reasonable to purse nursing without having a "calling... drawn to nursing as if you have no choice in the matter." It can be a blandly pragmatic decision based on cost/benefit analysis.
Many thousands of people each year become new nurses in the US and Canada and there's no reason that anybody of average intelligence and determination can't do the same.
it's annoying how people are always trying to outsmart one another or have the final word on a matter. get over yourselves, there are many ways of looking at something. a lot of these people take what others say way too literally just so they can prove a point. we're not writing legal documents to be critiqued... grow up. agh it's frustrating having to sift through all the garbage responses. for some, this may be a garbage response and i'm totally ok with that.
Idk exactly what she meant but I just finished my first semester of nursing school. First, it is very competitive to get in the program because of GPA volunteer experience grades etc etc. Once you're in the program we all try to stick together to PASS. Generally it's not about being competitive anymore we're all just trying to pass so we can graduate. However, once you graduate I can imagine it'll be competitive once again. Ahhh the cycle.
Ten years have passed since I applied to nursing school. The story follows:
I was rather rebellious during my younger years, and had a complete lack of interest towards anything academically related. I dropped out of high school during my senior year, and was going to become a truck driver. I did end up going back, and just barely graduated high school the following year (something ranked like #434 of 436 total graduating students/very low GPA). I signed up with the military soon afterwords. Halfway through my four year term, I knew with 100% certainty that I wanted to become a nurse.
I soon found out that the University in which I wanted to obtain my nursing degree from was extremely competitive! Somewhere in the neighborhood of accepting only 80 students each year, from the 400 - 500 applicants applying for those seats! As such, I knew that I would have to be adequately prepared. If one of those eighty seats were to be mine, I fully understood that my GPA on prerequisite courses was going to make that possible. No other single factor was near as important.
There was work to be done... With me, there was very little in the way of an educational foundation allready in place. From square one, it would have to be; to learn, and relearn the basics. In math alone, I had to take four seperate classes during the start-up of my college education, before I was able to enroll myself in the first college level mathematics course that I took. I studied very hard, always maintaining a philosophy: not-to-pass, but, to learn... Getting accepted into the School of Nursing of my choice was not difficult for me when the time came, with having maintained a perfect 4.0 prior, in the prerequisite courses needed to gain entrance. Several months into the program, we were informed that of the eighty nursing students in our class, the lowest GPA among us was that of a 3.94 (!)... Amazing!
The pamphlet for this school says that entrance into their program is competitive, and requires a minimum GPA of 2.6 (I hope that prospective nursing students do focus more so on the "competitive")...
I've had a conversation with a girl who is in year 2 of nursing. I asked her if nursing is as competitive as its reputation says it is. She agreed that it was competitive, but said that it was mostly the amount of work and not how challenging the work was.
I'm just confused by that. How is a heavy course load inherently competitive?
I just wanted to clarify what exactly the "competitive" nature of nursing entails exactly. Do your peers try to ambush you? Do your professors neglect you if you are behind your peers? Are your classes large and you have to fight to get needed attention from your teacher? How much is a "lot" of coursework?
My experience so far is that yes, peers try to ambush you.......not all but some. It is sneaky and selfish and makes no sense especially to those of us who genuinely dont want to see our friends fail. I do t want to go into specifics but lets just say i didnt realize what waa going until i felt stabbed in the back a quarter too late. Yes, professors neglect you if you are anything less than amazing: cranky attitude one day: shunned. Poor quiz grade: shunned. Showing signs of stress: shunned. I had a great term and then a weak term and my instructors have nothing to say to me anymore besides hello and coursework.... it used to be different when i was making 95 and 100s on everything. My program is very small but it was difficult at our clinical site to talk with our instructor because one student was constantly "hogging" her. It meant a lot of hovering when I didnt have that time really. Our coursework is not insurmountable and only helps to retain the material.
Nursing school is tough but not terrible. Its important to just keep your mind over matter and buckle down and not let your mind race and stress too much and ignore any seemingly personal attacks because theyre generally nor your problem. Easier said then done....
It sounds like you are just sort of sniffing around the idea of becoming a nurse, with little or no commitment. There isn't anything wrong with that, but it probably means you should stay away. If becoming a nurse isn't something you want with all you heart, then you will never make it through nursing school.
I didn't get that impression.
loriangel14, RN
6,933 Posts
If you are in Ontario the wait times won't be too bad. Had you started looking at schools yet?
I am an RPN in Ontario.I haven't seen any RN programs that are part time but there are RPN programs that are part time and then there are part time bridge programs as well.