Need to interview nursing students....

dp133 · Nov 27, 2011

What is this for? This is a lengthy interview but if it's for something worth-while I may be able to help you out. Then again, I may ask why you chose this forum. If you're a graduate student you should have access to nursing students and I would think someone would have agreed to do a quick one-on-one with you.

vincejoyce · Nov 27, 2011

yah,.thats correct what he said,.hehe

Home Health Columnist / Guide · Nov 27, 2011

moved to our general nursing student forum.

ashleyisawesome, BSN, RN · Nov 27, 2011

i agree with pp, i would be happy to fill it out, but what is it for?

lillymom · Nov 28, 2011

i am going to assume that you are a high school student and are doing this as a career project so i will answer.

1. what semester of the nursing program are you now enrolled?

　first semester

2. what are the best things about your nursing program?

　the days that are scheduled

3. what are the worse things about your nursing program?

　online pharmacology and suddenly announcing new clinical rotations

4. how does nursing school affect your family?

　not much time for family since i work

5. why did you select this nursing program?

　because of the location

6. did you have previous health care employment or education before you entered your nursing program?

　cma and cna been in healthcare nearly all my employed life

7. what do you find easy about nursing school?

　nothing

8. what do you find the hardest?

　fundamentals so far. it seems more opinion based to me

9. would yo say the nursing program is expensive? are there hidden costs?

　yes. many but that depends on the chosen program and school

10. do you work? how many hours per week?

yes, 36 hrs per week

11. is there anything that you were not academically prepare for?

　i should have taken a & p before the program to prepare more for pharm

12. what would you recommend to an in-coming student to make them better prepared for the program?

pay attention to and take a & p before starting the program

13. what would you change about your program?

　make pharm an actual class, change the sudden announcements of clinicals.

14. how do you compare the pre-nursing or pre-requisites to the actual nursing classes?

　again a & p helps, chemistry helps some, the others not so much but the pre-reqs are different depending on the program or school.

15. what part of the nursing program causes the most anxiety among you and your peers?

　not knowing what to study for pharm

16. do nursing students support each other? do you find much competition?

　yes, some but not much except when doing competition activities then we are super competitive

17. so far, what clinical experiences in your program have you enjoyed the most?

　not much we mostly do glorified cna work. i like following a nurse instead of getting one patient all day.

18. would you encourage your son/daughter/brother/sister/best friend to go into nursing?

　depends on if they wanted to. always follow your heart.

19. are you glad you picked nursing as a major?

　yes. i actually love nursing school though extremely stressful

20. do you feel that your nursing school prepares you for the profession?

i don't think that any school can really prepare you for the profession. they will prepare you to pass the nclex though.

NCRNMDM, ASN, RN · Nov 28, 2011

1. what semester of the nursing program are you now enrolled?

i am currently finishing my first semester of nursing school. in january i will begin second semester. i am currently enrolled in an asn program.

2. what are the best things about your nursing program?

i love everything about nursing school. i love class, i love clinical, and i enjoyed skills lab. i am fascinated with nursing, and i have wanted to pursue nursing since i was 6 years old. my classmates also make nursing school so much better. we are a great support system, we study together, we are friends outside of the program, and we are just there for each other.

3. what are the worse things about your nursing program?

clinical is the hardest thing about my program, but i wouldn't say it's the, "worst." our clinical instructor is very uncompromising, and she demands excellence in the clinical setting. some students don't like her for this reason, but i respect her and i feel that she is better preparing us than other clinical instructors would. she is very fond of making us memorize anywhere from 20 to 50 drugs in 30 to 40 minutes time, and she expects that we know each drug our patient is taking. she also expects us to do any nursing procedures that need to be done on our patients. because of this, we all have a more advanced knowledge of pharmacology than most first semester students in our program, and we have all been exposed to a great deal of procedures.

4. how does nursing school affect your family?

my family is very understanding. since i'm only 19, my parents told me that i could live at home while i attended school. my mother has worked in healthcare for 28 years, so she really understands what i'm going through. my father, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins believe that nursing isn't all that hard, and that as a nurse you blindly follow every order that is written by the md. they don't see that you have to critically think, apply your knowledge, and make split second decisions that can sometimes make the difference between life and death. they also don't realize how big of an undertaking i have taken on by going to nursing school. after graduation, i want to work as an icu nurse, and they don't understand how hard it is for a new grad to orient to a critical care unit. because of their lack of understanding, it is often hard to discuss my days at clinical, my school work, or how stressed i am with them because they minimize my feelings due to their lack of knowledge.

5. why did you select this nursing program?

the program is close by, suits my lifestyle, and has a very high passing rate (we have an average of 98% pass rate on the nclex on the first attempt).

6. did you have previous health care employment or education before you entered your nursing program?

prior to applying for the nursing program, i volunteered in the ed, icu, or, pacu, and in a level one trauma center. i also did some cna work in the hospice, ed, and nursing home setting.

7. what do you find easy about nursing school?

i find pharmacology and patient care to be fairly easy. while everyone else struggles with pharmacology, i feel that the information comes naturally and without much study. i also tend to understand the complicated pathophysiology and anatomy pretty well.

8. what do you find the hardest?

i find studying for tests to be the hardest part. i tend to over-study, and i always end up with nearly 200 notecards for each exam. after the exam is over, i come out shaking my head because of how far in depth i studied compared to how easy the majority of the exam was. my study habits, however, have benefitted me greatly, and i am 2 points away from an a in the class.

9. would yo say the nursing program is expensive? are there hidden costs?

tuition, books, and miscellaneous fees are pretty expensive. if you can, buy your books on amazon; you will save a ton of money, and you'll generally have them at your home before the bookstore even gets them in. our program isn't as expensive as some, but there are hidden costs, and you will end up paying more than you had bargained for. in the end, though, it's all worth it.

10. do you work? how many hours per week?

i do not currently work.

11. is there anything that you were not academically prepare for?

as of yet, i haven't seen anything that i wasn't academically prepared for.

12. what would you recommend to an in-coming student to make them better prepared for the program?

pay attention in anatomy and physiology and microbiology, and take a couple of chemistry courses even if chemistry isn't a required pre-requisite. also, pay attention in english class because your written and verbal communication skills are just as important as your science knowledge. learn how to write papers in apa format because this is the format that each paper will be in at most nursing programs. learn how to take good notes, and get used to your professors speaking very quickly. if you don't know medical terminology, study up, because if you don't there will be tons of words that you have no clue as to the spelling or meaning.

13. what would you change about your program?

i don't think i would change anything about my program. there are moments when i gripe and complain, but at the end of the day, i really love the program i'm in.

14. how do you compare the pre-nursing or pre-requisites to the actual nursing classes?

you will see a lot of things from anatomy and physiology, a moderate amount of information from microbiology, and a small amount of information from chemistry throughout your nursing courses. anatomy and physiology will be a big player in learning about diseases, the body's response to infection, trauma, and surgery, different medical conditions, and nursing procedures. micro will come up when you learn about infection, inflammation, and autoimmune disorders. chemistry will appear when you start pharmacology, and begin to learn how certain medications work in the body. i found some of the pre-requistes to be easier than the nursing courses, and i found some to be harder than the nursing courses.

15. what part of the nursing program causes the most anxiety among you and your peers?

exams and clinical definitely causes a ton of anxiety.

16. do nursing students support each other? do you find much competition?

that varies from program to program and even from class to class. the day classes at my program are very competitive, cut throat, and vindictive. my night class, in contrast, is very clam, laid back, and supportive. we want to see each other do well, and we will do everything we can to help one another out. we all want to graduate together. 　

17. so far, what clinical experiences in your program have you enjoyed the most?

we have been on a post-surgical floor that also accepts icu step-down and medical over-flow during this semester, so we've seen a lot. i got to float to icu for a few hours one day, and since i want to be an icu nurse i really enjoyed that. the floor we've been on has been really interesting, and there is always something new to see or learn.

18. would you encourage your son/daughter/brother/sister/best friend to go into nursing?

only if that's what they really want. nursing isn't something you go into for fun. it's a calling, and you really have to have a passion for doing it in order to enjoy it and keep your sanity. if someone was doing it for money, job security, or any other reason rather than a genuine desire to care for the sick, then i'd tell them to find another career and forget about nursing. however, i would never discourage anyone who had a true passion for caring for the sick. that's all you need to go into nursing; well, that and a strong stomach, a sharp mind, and a willingness to be stressed, pushed to your limit, and challenged on a daily basis. 　

19. are you glad you picked nursing as a major?

yes. i would never dream of doing anything else with my life.

20. do you feel that your nursing school prepares you for the profession?

i don't think any nursing school can truly prepare you for the profession, but i feel that my program gets as close as it can. there will still be tons to learn when i graduate, and the learning won't stop until i retire, but i feel that my program is laying a great foundation for me to continue to build upon.

bols27 · Nov 28, 2011

Hi, I have to interview a student nursing student but I do not know anyone and it is due in a few days if someone can PLEASE help!!!
Student Nurse Interview
　
　
　
1. What semester of the nursing program are you now enrolled?
　1st
　
2. What are the best things about your nursing program?
It is only 2 years long　
　
3. What are the worse things about your nursing program?
Disorganization x50 and an inability to face that there are any problems.
　
4. How does nursing school affect your family?
　I have no wife or children and my parents are very proud of me for making the choice to be a nurse so I have to say positively.
　
5. Why did you select this nursing program?
　It is only 2 years and I was already somewhat familiar with the school and program since it is in my home town.
　
6. Did you have previous health care employment or education before you entered your nursing program?
　Not in human medicine no, but extensively in veterinary medicine.
　
7. What do you find easy about nursing school?
　I find most of the actual science material pretty easy, a lot of times it feels like we just glaze over the top of a lot.
　
8. What do you find the hardest?
　Trying to navigate the endless miles of red tape and jump through the billions of hoops that the instructors and administration set up for no apparent reason with no explanation
　
9. Would yo say the nursing program is expensive? Are there hidden costs?
　compared to any other program at this school it is exceedingly expensive and yes there are a LOT of "extra" costs. compared to other schools it is very cheap.
　
10. Do you work? How many hours per week?
no
　
11. Is there anything that you were not academically prepare for?
not even close
　
　
12. What would you recommend to an in-coming student to make them better prepared for the program?
expect it to be nothing like you have ever experienced. i know it is cliche but nursing school is like another world. also, don't buy in to the hype about how difficult it is, it is incredibly doable even for marginally intelligent people.
　
13. What would you change about your program?
most of it. i would start by getting rid of the current director and at least a handful of instructors. i would also try to hire nursing educators instead of just going out into the community and bringing in a bunch of NPs who have no idea how to teach anything
　
　
14. How do you compare the pre-nursing or pre-requisites to the actual nursing classes?
　the prerequisites are actually harder than the nursing classes and a lot more fulfilling up to this point.
　
15. What part of the nursing program causes the most anxiety among you and your peers?
never being prepared for exams no matter how much we study and read. our instructors like to test us on information that they do not cover and is not in the hundreds of pages of assigned reading, sometimes it will be word for word from chapters that we haven't covered and won't cover for another semester or 2. as i said, it is terribly disorganized.
　
　
16. Do nursing students support each other? Do you find much competition?
yes and no to the support. and absolutely to competition. i find that even when students are "helping" each other they still always seem to be trying to get an edge somehow.
　
　
17. So far, what clinical experiences in your program have you enjoyed the most?
ive enjoyed seeing the 2 patients i have had so far. i should have had 6 by now but we had half of our clinicals this semester canceled due to scheduling problems. ridiculous.
　
　
18. Would you encourage your son/daughter/brother/sister/best friend to go into nursing?
　yes and no. i feel that i made the right choice and i think for many it could be a good choice but as for anyone who would be looking for a job when i am, i wouldnt encourage them to go into nursing.
　
19. Are you glad you picked nursing as a major?
i didn't really pick nursing per say. i think as far as my options at the present time yes im happy im going to be a nurse. overall, i wish i would have gone to medical school when i had the chance
　
　
20. Do you feel that your nursing school prepares you for the profession?

there is no way to answer this as a student. even if i feel like im prepared i am sure there will be a time or a billion where i think "man, why didnt i learn this in school" I think nursing school prepares you to take the NCLEX...nothing can really prepare you to be a nurse but experience as a nurse.

TC3200 · Nov 28, 2011

READ THIS IF YOU ARE EVALUATING NURSING SCHOOL PROGRAMS.

1. What semester of the nursing program are you now enrolled?

　End of Year 1 at a 2-year diploma school

2. What are the best things about your nursing program?

　Since it's a hospital-based program, the school can offer clinical experiences in surgery and birthing and whatever, in the first year as well as the second. You get more clinical hours, and more variety of experiences.

3. What are the worse things about your nursing program?

　1. Integrated curriculum: Instead of well-defined units of med-surg, LTC, mother-baby,etc, this program chops it all up and flits from fragment to fragment. The clinical are not correlated with the lecture content starting in Nursing II. Sometimes you get yout clinical experience before you've even covered that topic in class. sometimes it's later. Clinicals are like a totally separate curriculum that runs Th and Fri.

2. The school starts just one class per year. If you fail out of a class, you must sit out almost an entire 12 months before you cam repeat it.

4. How does nursing school affect your family?

　It doesn't I am childless, single, and not anyone's caregiver.

5. Why did you select this nursing program?

　 I am a displaced worker who had Trade Act funding for full time school of 2 years duration or shorter, and cost of $26,500 or less. Since I have college degrees already, associate degree programs would not be full-time. Nor would BSRN programs. So, that pushed me to trade school or diploma programs that essentially accepted no transfer credits from college. It takes a long time to get a school added to the Trade Act training provider list, (get government approval.)

So, this one was Trade Act approved, full time, and had slots available. It was also 24 months, so I expected to NOT be always overloaded with work because, really, other schools do RN in 12 - 16 or 18 months, ad accelerated or diploma programs. (more on this later)

6. Did you have previous health care employment or education before you entered your nursing program?

　Nope. Absolutely none.

7. What do you find easy about nursing school?

　Absolutely nothing. It's a totally different culture from college, the business world, manufacturing, or engineering/science/technology. I had nothing in common with the other students, and I brought no transferable skills except I could ace the med calculations without even reading the book.

8. What do you find the hardest?

　Their goofy integrated curriculum. Block curriculum is the standard for most schools. Integrated means that the school had designed a curriculum however it wanted to, or however it gets students rotated through their facility in a term, or whatever. It's not necessarily designed for efficient learning, nor for a complete and thorough study of each topic. The way this school fragmented it's custom curriculum, you get smatterings of a lot of things, yo never see the big picture, you never get a change to thoroughly cement you learning before you are jerked off of that and whisked to the next thing. It's very hard to learn nursing like that!

And another bad thing about this particular curriculum is that the scheduling is very, very complicated. We didn't have set blocks like M/W/F 8am to noon, or anything. There is so much variation in this thing that it can't be described as anything except the hospital has an appointment book. They schedule to go when and where they thing you fit. You may start at 6:30 am today and 8am tomorrow. You may have a 10.5 or 12 hour clinical. You may have a sim lab training this week, that is for a clinical that you won't actually have until the very end of the term. The amount of overhead for the student it enormous!

Lectures, literally 6 to 7 or 8 hours per day, 6 days per week, not days off. Remaining 2 days will be clinicals.

9. Would you say the nursing program is expensive? Are there hidden costs?

　No hidden costs. As a Trade Act school, it must disclose all costs for all courses , books, supplies, tests, uniforms, etc.

　 The only "hidden costs" will be what it costs you to pay someone do do services that you can do for yourself, but don't have time to. i.e. you buy meals instead of cook, you pay for a car repair or you replace the car because you have NO TIME to do anything except school. and you have no days off to rest, reorganize, prepare meals and freeze them, fix your car, take it to a shop, whatever. This part of nursing school, I found pure Hades and total bullsheet.

10. Do you work? How many hours per week?

No. I had insufficient time to study the fragmented curriculum, write the epic clinical reports, and sleep 5-6 hours per night. There was NO leftover time for a job.

11. Is there anything that you were not academically prepare for?

　No, I'd say not. The problem I had was the school's poorly-designed curriculum was just plainly too fragmented and inefficient, and the students were always spending exorbitant time self-teaching to prepare themselves for a major clinical on a subject that hadn't been covered in class, or going back and reviewing, because the school didn't just "stick to the knitting" and cover each topic start-to-finish, like other schools do.

12. What would you recommend to an in-coming student to make them better prepared for the program?

Definitely choose a BLOCK curriculum, and a college degree program,. Colleges are experts at tracing, and they have probably first crack at the best nursing instructors, and are in a better position to offer more money and better benefits, so probably get the better instructors. Colleges may start 2 or more classes per year and you might be able to just repeat your class the next term instead of wait a whole year. Colleges have IT facilities, and tutors, and set schedules. And college credits are generally transferable from one school to another.

13. What would you change about your program?

　 Block curriculum, and a fixed schedule. CUT the lecture hours! Nobody learns from 6-8 hours of blather. It just exhausts students and wastes time. We still have to go home and study all evening after sitting all day! Never make a student do a clinical before teaching that subject in lecture.

14. How do you compare the pre-nursing or pre-requisites to the actual nursing classes?

　They had absolutely nothing in common. I liked all the college work,. I hated the nursing school. Once in RN school., we had an exam that covered third trimester of pregnancy, diseases of eye & ear, and cardio, all in the same exam. I am thinking there was another topic thrown in there, as well.

15. What part of the nursing program causes the most anxiety among you and your peers?

　Testing. The school has a non-standard curriculum, the lectures are copious dumps pf material, and each exam has only 50 questions. The teachers write their own questions. Due to the heavy schedule, there's not enough time left over to study after you get done with all those lecture hours, the 2-day clinics, the big clinical write-ups, the re-writes that they make you do, whatever. Same grind, all the time. Never enough time to properly prepare for an exam. Never enough time to study it all. Always going into exams less than totally-prepared, in spite of giving it your all. Consequently, this program produces lots of Cs, few Bs, no As. Many fail-outs each term, too. Just totally overworks and over-stresses and over-books all the time.

16. Do nursing students support each other? Do you find much competition?

　No support. Everyone overworked. Overbooked. Commuter school. At end of day, all bail out and go home to do schoolwork.

17. So far, what clinical experiences in your program have you enjoyed the most?

　Clinicals. I hate the lectures with a rare passion.

18. Would you encourage your son/daughter/brother/sister/best friend to go into nursing?

　Nope.

19. Are you glad you picked nursing as a major?

　Nope. I left the program last week, as a matter of fact.

20. Do you feel that your nursing school prepares you for the profession?

This program, had it been structured block and been designed for sequential and efficient learning, would have been great. You got real-life clinical experience from the start. But for a career changer with no prior knowledge of healthcare or nursing, the fragmented curriculum made it very hard to learn.

That was not an age-related issue. All students felt the same: The program made simple things very complicated due the the fragmented arrangement of topics, and the failure to tie it to the work world, and failure to sequence your clinicals to what you were learning in class. Overall, the students in this program are doing an unusual amount of self-teaching, and are constantly having to cram all the time.

TC3200 · Nov 28, 2011

^^ That whole thing is riddled w/ typos because this (borrowed) keyboard is sized for man-hands, and I can't reach half of the keys unless I look first, lol.

The comment about the colleges should say: Definitely choose a BLOCK curriculum, and a college degree program,. Colleges are experts at teaching, and designing training programs, and they have probably first crack at the best nursing instructors,...

BEFORE you commit to a school, you need to evaluate the worth and the practicality of how that school teaches, not just look at NCLEX pass rates and attrition rates. Make the school give you a copy of the actual schedule for the first year, so you can see how the program is laid out, and how the clinicals were scheduled vs. lecture content, and just how complicated is it to figure out where you'll need to be and when, and ARE there any days or half-days off so that you can take care of your real-life chores.

I had the best possible situation, going into RN school, and the logistics problems that this integrated curriculum created made me completely miserable. (I've never heard a fellow student praise this program, either. The second year students told us "It just gets worse." lol)

As a career-changer, I needed a program that was very organized and thorough and systematic, not one so chopped into such small bits that it always looked like total chaos and resulted in rote memorization, because we were given such small pieces of topics and thus memorize them was all we could do. Looking back on Year 1, I thought "They sure did make very simple things very complicated," and, with regret, "THAT'S all the farther we got IN AN ENTIRE YEAR of working our tails off!!?"

I went into this RN school with school paid for, savings to cover my living expenses so I didn't have to work, no kids, no debts, usually reliable transportation ,etc. I had my slate cleared, in other words. I really, really wanted to become a nurse. I had done my prereqs over a 4-year period while working. I had interviewed all of the nurses I know, about what the job duties are and what the modern trends in the workplace are, and the diploma vs. AS vs. BS RN debate. I interviewed women who'd been nursing as sole career, and some who'd changed from something else. And I also talked to male RNs and LPNs who'd changed careers after losing a job, too, because their career backgrounds fit mine because I came from science and technology, not homemaking and motherhood, even though I am female.

I applied to 5 RN degree programs, and was accepted by 4. I evaluated 3 diploma RN programs, and applied to two, and was accepted by the one I wrote about, above, so I withdrew the app from the other. I also looked at two LPN programs and was accepted by them. So, I had a choice of where to attend nursing school that most people won't get.

BUT, and I can't say this LOUDLY enough: Where the wheels really fell off, is this school that I picked has a really weird and fragmented sequencing of the nursing course material. And a highly variable schedule. This school really monopolized all of our time, and, frankly, wasted a good bit of it on things like observing rehab, and observing children getting educated, and the most useless thing: Role-playing in a 3-hour "poverty simulation." There was about 30 minutes needed to drive there, get enrolled, and drive back home, too. Longer if the students didn't live in town. After that, we had to also write a report. So, this thing managed to hog in the ballpark of 4-5 hours of time.

Now, picture yourself having another 5 hours to study for an exam, instead... compare that what you got out of the Poverty Simulation experience. And then imagine a whole curriculum padded with similar junk, and the students always having their study time reduced by junk and report-writing about that same junk, and you see, better, why I am so negative.

Right now, I am glad I'm out. I may not try it again, someplace else. It was a very negative experience for me. Plus, in a full year, I'd never gotten to study anything that interested me except cardio.

mchacon21 · Nov 28, 2011

Thank all of you who answered my questions!!! I highly appreciate each of you taking time out of your day to help me out thanks again!!!