need some advice about school

allnurses Guide · Jul 17, 2011

I failed... twice.

I had to go before the board to get back in.

I just graduated.

I got me a dry erase board and "taught" what I was trying to learn.

Try to break it down piece by piece.

Get on the Evolve website, find your text books and register for them. The chapter quizzes for some of the books are great!

I improved 110%!!!

mz-purposedriven_rn · Jul 18, 2011

I had the same problem my first semester.:confused:If I didnt understand material, I made sure I did my OWN research atleast before that given week was over.This included Saunders NCLEX Book,nurses,youtube videos,and "Straights A's in Pediatrics/Psychiatric Nursing"(many editions). To review for tests I used SAUNDERS and basically asked myself,'How can you apply the most important information in a clinical setting?"

Good luck:yeah:

Streamline2010 · Jul 19, 2011

It's against their religion and holism to give any freebie to a student, I guess.

I don't know what it is about nursing school, but it must be some kind of tradition to make each and every student reinvent the wheel. It must be against some tradition for an instructor to just answer a question. I feel I've been rudely rebuffed when I've asked questions, especially curiosity questions. For example, when I worked in private industry, and I had somebody either teaching me on-the-job, or giving me a tour of the facility, I could ask that person a question about Why or How or What do you do, or Why or How or What is that? and that person would happily, willingly, and without hesitation or snideness whatsoever, give me a nice friendly short answer, and they seemed pleased that I'd asked.

Nursing instructors, on the other hand, have totally different air about them, and a totally different mindset. Ask them for the time of day, and they tell you are to have a watch. Ask what that extra peak is in a sample EKG chart that someone left lying around, and they'll tell you to go find a book. Ask a curiosity question about diabetic footcare, and you'll get an answer like "Now would be a good time for you to start exploring." Yeah, I know how to look things up. And I didn't want a dissertation. One sentence would probably suffice. Would it kill any instructor to just give somebody the answer, instead of make them do more work for it? "Hey, that's a whatever...you'll see that with whatever ..." I just wanted a little human decency to pull the stick out of her posterior and make some polite conversation about job-related topics, like all the people do in all of the other occupations that are not medicine. If you are a teacher, then teach, damit.

As an adult student, I find their attitude highly irritating, rude, and totally unacceptable. Never, never be so self-important that you can't at least give a normal conversational response. Just one more way that NS is it's own uniquely crackpot little society.

Streamline2010 · Jul 19, 2011

It's against their religion and holism to give anything extra to a student, I guess.

I don't know what it is about nursing school, but it must be some kind of tradition to make each and every student completely reinvent the wheel while studying nursing. It must be against some tradition for an instructor to just answer a question. I feel I've been rudely rebuffed whenever I've asked questions, especially curiosity questions. For example, when I worked in private industry, and I had somebody either teaching me on-the-job, or giving me a tour of the facility, I could ask that person a question about Why or How or What do you do, or Why or How or What is that? Or How does that work? And that person would happily, willingly, and without hesitation or snideness whatsoever, give me a nice friendly short answer, and they seemed pleased that I'd asked.

Contrast with NS: Nursing instructors, on the other hand, have totally different air about them, and a totally different mindset. Ask them for the time of day, and they tell you are to wear a watch. Ask what that extra peak is in a sample EKG chart that someone left lying around in the break room, and they'll tell you to go find a book and look it up. (Why? If you don't know, just say so.) Ask a curiosity question about diabetic footcare, and you'll get an answer like "Now would be a good time for you to start exploring the nursing care for some of these conditions." Yeah, I know how to look things up. And I didn't want a dissertation. One little sentence would probably suffice. Would it kill any instructor to just give somebody a brief answer, instead always of make them do more work for it? "Hey, that's a whatever...you'll see that with whatever ..." I just wanted a little human decency to pull the stick out of her posterior and make some polite conversation about job-related topics, like all the people do in all of the other occupations that are not medicine. If you are a teacher, then teach, damit. Don't stomp the student's curiosity and enthusiasm.

As an adult student, I find their attitude highly irritating, rude, and totally unacceptable. Never, never be so self-important that you can't at least give a normal conversational response to a student. Just one more way that NS is it's own uniquely crackpot little society. :down:

lillymom · Jul 20, 2011

I heard a lecture from a nursing instructor and she was telling us about how they teach. She said that they will not give you a direct answer to a general question but they would give you the resources to find that information out on your own.

She said it is all about how you ask the question. If you were to ask, as previous poster stated, what time is it? They would point you to a clock. If you were to ask I looked at the clock and it appears to be 10:30am then they would say that looks correct or maybe you need to take a closer look at the clock.

Their job is not to give you an answer it is to give you the resources to find the right answer and guide you to the correct answer. Before a question is asked it needs to be thoroughly researched first and you need to tell them what your thoughts are and the reason you are questioning those thoughts.

nurseprnRN, BSN, RN · Jul 22, 2011

i know this makes students crazy. it also makes faculty crazy to have students who look at them as websites: all they have to do is ask a question and the answer is instantly given unto them. faculty are not wikipedia . at least look at wikipedia first, :lol2: . well, not wikipedia, but some reference material.

i will always help anyone who doesn't know something, but i want evidence that they are coming to the table first. when you are a grad, you will ask questions too, but you must be in the habit (lifelong habit) of trying to find the information you want before you ask someone, unless it's in the heat of an emergency. because there will be a lot of times when the people you are with ...won't know. so you need to know how to find out on your own. that is part of why faculty are like that. they aren't being deliberately obtuse, they are trying to get you to move along in your professional development. really. that's the point.

so, if i have a student who says, "i have a question about bun and creatinine, and i looked all this stuff up (specify) and it still doesn't make sense to me, what am i missing?" i will sit down with her and walk through what she knows already. then i can drop the hint or clinical pearl that ties it all together for her, and she will never forget it.

but if i have a student who says, basically, "answer my homework question for me," and can't tell me anything she's done to help herself first, she's going to hear (directly or indirectly) that she needs to have a more concrete understanding of at least some precursor to the answer before we have anything to talk about.

hope that helps.:heartbeat

ParkerBC,MSN,RN, PhD, RN · Jul 23, 2011

i know this makes students crazy. it also makes faculty crazy to have students who look at them as websites: all they have to do is ask a question and the answer is instantly given unto them. faculty are not wikipedia . at least look at wikipedia first, . well, not wikipedia, but some reference material.
i will always help anyone who doesn't know something, but i want evidence that they are coming to the table first. when you are a grad, you will ask questions too, but you must be in the habit (lifelong habit) of trying to find the information you want before you ask someone, unless it's in the heat of an emergency. because there will be a lot of times when the people you are with ...won't know. so you need to know how to find out on your own. that is part of why faculty are like that. they aren't being deliberately obtuse, they are trying to get you to move along in your professional development. really. that's the point.
so, if i have a student who says, "i have a question about bun and creatinine, and i looked all this stuff up (specify) and it still doesn't make sense to me, what am i missing?" i will sit down with her and walk through what she knows already. then i can drop the hint or clinical pearl that ties it all together for her, and she will never forget it.
but if i have a student who says, basically, "answer my homework question for me," and can't tell me anything she's done to help herself first, she's going to hear (directly or indirectly) that she needs to have a more concrete understanding of at least some precursor to the answer before we have anything to talk about.
hope that helps.:heartbeat

grntea,

i wanted to take this opportunity to say thank-you for providing responses with a significant amount of value. i have read several of your posts and you do such an excellent job of articulating and clearly explaining your position while adding value and different perspectives. there have been a couple of posts you responded to that have encouraged me to see the op's dilemma from a different perspective. just know your posts make a difference :yeah: :yeah::d