a lost nursing student

[elaineweiling]

Hi Everyone!

im a 20 year old nursing student and feeling lost now. hope I can get some advice from here. I'm from China originally, moved to the US in 2010. I moved to philly suburbs in my HS sophomore year. Due to different school system in China. I was able to finish my high school courses a year ahead and went to a community college for my senior year. I have excellent gpa in high school but my first year in college crushed me. Due to the language problem and bad decision of picking tough courses. I end up failing half of the college courses. However, i worked hard and took summer classes and I managed to get my associate degree in liberal studies in 2 years. Then I decided to change my major to nursing. I transferred to Gwynedd Mercy's ASN program. But got kicked out of the program for failing two nursing class. I had As for my clinicals and Lab. The Heisi test is what made my failed. The Heisi test weighted heavily in the course and I failed it twice. I don't think I'm a bad student. But for some reason I just couldn't pass the Heisi test. Now I'm back to the community college and have to start fresh because they don't take nursing transfer credits. The community college rank students with their grades and only take 60 students a semester for the clinical. I'm the last one on the wait list for the fall semester and I don't think I have much chances of getting into the fall clinical. I'm devastated now and don't know what to do. It's too late for me to apply to another program for the fall semester.

I had two successful clinicals at gwynedd and the clinical experience got me a job as an ER tech in a local hospital. I love my job and nursing and I'm great with my patients. I really want to pursue nursing as a career. But it's so hard to get into a good program. Please give me some advice! Thank you

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

Is English comprehension an issue? English is tough but nursing/medical English is even tougher especially for those who have a non-Latin based primary language. Perhaps consider ESL services at your school. There are specialty trained tutors that may be able to assist you.

I know in Canada there are English language courses for internationally educated nurses. Perhaps consider assistance from a test taking tutoring service. Does your school offer HESI remediation? There is an art to taking standardized tests. Perhaps getting instruction in test taking strategies may help. If there are language issues (and you write quite well for a person who has been in this country a relatively short time!) consider even an online medical terminology course. These courses break down the words and may help with test taking strategies for tests like the HESI.

You may need to take a short break to regroup before applying to another program.

[bgxyrnf, MSN, RN]

My advice is to take your time and let it all fall into place.

You had your chance to make it happen quickly but you weren't able to take advantage of it. You will have another chance but it may take quite awhile... as it should (that is, in my judgment, others should get their first chance before you get your second chance).

Keep working your ED tech job and networking like crazy and booking solid references. Take this time to study the fundamental nursing topics out of the books which you should already have so that you will be ready to kick @$$ when your next shot comes. Take as many varied classes as you think you can ace (in your case, grades are vital).

Maybe even look at studying another language (Spanish is fairly easy and it's super valuable; Russian is not so easy but is still super useful in some areas; given that your native tongue is a tonal language, you may find Vietnamese easier to learn and it also can be pretty useful in a lot of places).

Hang in there and give it time.

[LeChien, BSN, RN]

College is a lot different from high school. High school is set at the bare minimum. Take your time, try again.

[strawberryluv, BSN, RN]

Don't give up. I had a second chance in my nursing program and graduated in 2015. You can do it. Now that you have failed, this is your opportunity to really take your time and study the material you weren't able to grasp. Take a break from the rigors of being a student and work while slowly studying on own to understand what you didn't get the first time. Things will fall into place. Be patient. Look within yourself to see what went wrong and take steps to correct it. For me, I was weak in clinical so I took a job as a nurse aide and worked with patients to get the hands on care while observing and understanding the patients clinical appearance like in my lectures at school. It helped me a lot with patient care and also calming my nerves during clinical. I passed clinical and went on to graduate. You can do it too. Keep positive.