Nursing Research masters degree? School, programs, advice?

llg, PhD, RN · Apr 26, 2019

Could you please clarify something for me? A part of your post doesn't make sense. In the beginning of your original post, you seem to say that you were dismissed from school because you got 1 grade that was a "C" -- having missed a "B" by only a fraction of a point. That doesn't make sense. I have never heard of a school dismissing a student for only grade below a "B" -- with the rest of the grades being a "B" or better. There must have been more to the story than that -- or was this not an American school?

If you want to get back into nursing, you'll need to come to terms with what happened the first time you tried to become a nurse ... identify what went wrong and ways you can prevent that from happening again.

What degree did you eventually graduate with? What career paths are usually associated with that degree? What interested you about that field that might be worth pursuing further within that field?

If you decide to apply to a nursing program now, how strong will your application be? Do you have a high GPA? Have you been doing work/research in health care? Volunteering in health care? etc. If you don't have a strong application, some of the nursing school options may be out of reach for you. You also need to consider your financial situation. How will you be paying for the nursing education? Once you already have a Bachelor's in another field, some financial aid options for additional undergraduate education go away. If you already have beg student loans, you might want to work for a couple of years and pay them down before adding more to them. etc. - or look for a job as a research assistant to help pay for your schooling.

It's hard to give you much help with the limited info in your original post -- but I hope this gives you some things to think about.

EmilyGNursing · Apr 26, 2019

To answer your question, yes we are located in the USA. Our handbook says that we cannot make less than B average in any Nursing class or we cannot progress to the next level and will have to repeat. We are allowed one repeat ONE Nursing class (regardless of if you drop the class or fail the class). There is also a stipulation that you cannot have any C's in the previous two years. My freshmen year in college I made a C in A&P and retook it and made a B+, but that counted as a C for that "two C rule." During that semester, we were randomly assigned dates for a med checkoff, project, and extra stimulation. Unfortunately for me, all of those happened to be the same two day period as a pharm, patho, and med surg 1 test. By the time I got to the patho test I was so exhausted I didn't finish the test and made an extremely low score (46.85). Everyone asks why I didn't just move the dates, but believe me I had tried to get the dates moved for the project, check off, and stimulation but I was told I had to get someone to swap with me. Well, nobody wanted to swap during those days. To be honest, I was unprepared for the load to hit me all at once and panicked during the last test. The rest of the semester was just trying to redeem me from this class. I considered dropping, but if I drop and fail are both the 1 attempt, I figured it would be better to go for it and try to get either a B because on the next test there were huge improvements. I didn't want to give up. Well, finals week came around and I was at a 77.8. I needed an 86 on the final for this to get me to an 80. Based on all my other grades in the class being A's and high B's and my other classes having A's and high B's I thought it was possible. I was going to tutoring, studying, and even had to attend therapy for anxiety because of all of this. Most of my professors were helpful, and I did fantastic on the Kaplan review. Well in the end, I made an 84 on the final and it didn't quite pull my grade up high enough. My grade was less than a point away from the passing grade but the handbook said very clearly they do not round any grade (even .999). The cumulative final did not replace the lowest grade nor did it weigh more than a previous test. I went to the department head and tried my best to see if someone could work with me. I was told I could maybe re apply for an accelerated program, though most of the people they accept are biochem majors. I was also told that "rules are rules" I did look at accelerated programs but of the 2 in my state, I was resentful towards the one at my current school, I didn't qualify for the other (because I am no longer in good standing with my current program), I went to my advisor who told me that I wouldn't be left hanging when I had to choose a new major because I was not able to continue in the program. Well, I was left hanging and never heard back once summer started the following week. By this point, I felt so crushed that there was nothing I could do, I felt I lost my life purpose. I was in therapy for about a year because I hated myself for being a failure. It turns out that 3 other girls failed that class. One was able to continue because she had no prior C's in pre nursing classes but the other two of us were on our own. Thankfully I found an advisor in our psychology department who was very helpful. I am now a double major in psychology and biology and am graduating at the end of the summer.

In becoming a nurse again, it honestly took me a year of therapy because I hated and blamed myself for not being good enough. Nobody believes me that my school's rules are this strict until I show them the handbook. It especially hurts when classmates who I thought were my friends no longer talked to me "because I wasn't part of the cohort anymore, and was too nice to be a nurse anyway." (Yes, that was actually said to me). It really did show who my true friends were.

Career paths usually associated with a Psychology degree are a masters or Ph.D. in Clinical, Organizational, or Human Factors. Well, clinical psychology I knew was not for me. I had enough of therapy for myself, I wasn't seeing myself in it as a career. I tried Organizational, but hated the class, fortunately, I did really like human factors. That is how I started to get involved in the research with current Ph.D. students. One of my professors in psychology was amazing and told me about the research he was doing with physicians related to laparoscopic surgery and I was extremely interested! To learn more, I joined a research team in biology as well as psychology and have enjoyed it. For biology, most of the graduates go on to medical programs. I did join two pre-med clubs and was heavily interested in PA programs because I realized with my new bio degree I will have the prerequisites and an okay competitive GPA by the time that I graduate. PA is still in the running, and I have spoken with admissions to about 4 schools now. My draw to PA was similar to my draw to nursing. I love patient care, I love my clinical and I loved my patients. Its one of the reasons why no longer being in nursing is hard. While a lot of my peers love nursing and their patients, a few of them told me that they "only want to be nurses for the money" and one girl in my clinical group even told me she "hated old people" while we were on our geriatric rotation.

I have spoken with a few ADN programs and with my GPA (3.4) and dual degree, tech schools said I wouldn't even need letters of recommendation to get in, just to apply. I do not have the desire to repeat a traditional BSN program because it is both a lot more time and money but I would consider an accelerated program. I have 3 professors who told me they would happily write me letters of recommendation for these programs.

Most of the research I have been involved in large research has been on biomotion and on learning in children (very different). My GPA is okay (3.4). I do volunteer at a pharmacy and a free clinic. I have a resume with a lot of leadership experience and involvement as well from the two years before nursing classes started, and from this year after changing my major. I have had scholarship throughout undergrad and thankfully have no student debt.

Overall, I go back to nursing because it was my dream for such a long time. It still feels like a kick in the gut that I was no longer be able to continue in my previous BSN program but I wanted to find ways I could integrate research into nursing to help improve both schools and patient outcomes.

CamMc · Apr 26, 2019

It sounds like you are close to finishing your bachelors and this has been fairly recently. It might not be a bad idea to look and see if there are any post-bac BSN nursing programs. Your school sounds ridiculously strict, I know I also failed out of my nursing program by 2 points, but that was with a D not C. I probably could have fought it because I'm fairly certain that there was a test that I had gotten two answers correct, but by that point in my program i was exhausted and wasn't sure nursing was for me. I finished up a bachelors in social work and then went on to get my masters in applied behavior analysis, but I stopped working in that field because the pay was so bad without my board certification. I started working as a college enrollment advisor, but now don't like not having more interaction in helping others and I have decided to go back, but it has been 10 years, so I have a bit more steps to take. You are in a good position with your experience and the fact you don't already have a bunch of student debt (something that is definitely impacting my ability to go back in the quickest manner). I think you should go for it, it sounds like you were otherwise a good nursing student and the fact that you had a patho, pharm, and med-surg test all at the same time sounds like the program was really having you all do too much.

Nursing Research masters degree? School, programs, advice?

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