Maricopa applications- GCC Heads up (02/2018)

Published Feb 14, 2018

2 Posts

Hello Arizona nurses and prospective nurses,

I am writing this to share my PERSONAL OPINIONS as a Block III student in the Maricopa CEP at GCC. I have wanted to be a nurse for as long as I can remember and I am so honored to have made it to this point and made good grades in Blocks I and II. I love the clinical rotations and learn so much at them.

Some background - our Block I instructor was fabulous. Since then, we have had two brand spanking new instructors in succession who have not taught lecture classes previously (ok, everyone starts somewhere...). The one we had for Block II got up to speed fairly quick and overall I felt was very tough, but fair on us for the most part. I attained As and Bs in the previous blocks.

The instructor we have for Block III is a complete different story. While the person is nice as an individual, they were given the slides the DAY OF class starting probably 15 mins before, and she does not lecture on all of the material, she seemingly picks a powerpoint at random to lecture on, and when she does lecture, she reads word for word from the slides. This folks, is not teaching.

Since our class meets ONCE a week, this leaves a huge amount of material out, and we are forced to teach the material to ourselves, or we get assigned some group work where we are all supposed to go through the powerpoints and regurgitate that material (note: that is not 'teaching' in my opinion). MIND YOU, our tests are from the previous instructor who has since left and this material has not been covered in class. Our instructor constantly tells us "this could be on the test, but I haven't looked at it" We are told to do 'do the reading' that in many instances is over 200 pages for a single unit test.

I am writing this not as a RANT nor to COMPLAIN (though I am quite sure it is coming off that way...forgive me), but more to give you a better picture of this program at GCC because it most definitely is not what I thought it would be nor did they EVER WARN us that this was even a remote POSSIBILITY. It is a costly disappointment.

I sincerely hope this information helps someone if they are considering the GCC evening program in the future. My understanding is the OB instructor MAY also be retiring and so this would make a number of senior highly educated instructors (Block II, III, II-OB) leaving or retiring in a matter of about 9 months. This block is living proof that you cannot just pluck an adjunct off the street and be able to retain that same quality in education as was before. What's worse, is there is no quality control to even check and see if there is quality instruction going on. Something gives, and it gives in our STUDENT GRADES on exams, and we are labeled complainers. I feel my tuition money has been stolen out of my pocket this semester and there is nothing I can do but shut up, study my a$$ off to retain this material the best way I know how, read read read, and then read some more because there really is NO OTHER OPTION, other than to drop, dump $900 down the toilet, and try again.

Frustrated AZ hopeful nurse