I was supposed to take an exam at 8:30 am in the morning today, but my phone which was fully charged and plugged in decided to completely die over night, how? I have no idea.
I woke up at around 10:00 am and noticed how bright my room was, I quickly tried looking at my phone to see the time and noticed it was off. Yep, I have missed a nursing exam! I felt sick to my stomach and started panicking.
The very thing I immediately did was explain my situation honestly to my instructor and what happened. Our Syllabus policy states that we are able to make up an exam with a VALID excuse before the test, but I of course decided to be honest, and well, guess what? I was denied my exam and got a big fat 0.
So I pretty much lost a letter grade.
Anyway, I know the instructors will tell you to be honest all the time, but in situations like mine, you should lie.
She even encouraged me drop out of nursing school, even though I got A's on my last two exams. I can still make a B if I worked hard, but I can't believe she would encourage that.
I see you're not in nursing school yet by your profile so I'm going to share this with you: Your clinical grades will include a spot called "accountability". If your program is like mine, an "unacceptable" in this category fails you for the semester. What you are saying here, if you did get busted, would fail you. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Fail. If you do not have a strong enough moral code to realize lying is wrong, then at least let the possibility of failure prevent you from your creepily thoroughly thought out plan in the art of "lying convincingly".
Graduated. Work on a tele floor....yeah..jumped the gun on that one.
I could careless about a public profile.
I lied and had friends lie not because we're pathological lairs or manipulators, its because the rigorous standards we were subjected. I went the accelerated route and it was exactly that. I spent one day on tele and schools around me spend a month. It was crazy. Me and a friend held two part time jobs on top of school and volunteered around campus, while maintaining some of a social life i.e girlfriends. We both worked our asses off for our 3.8 overall nursing GPA. When we became so exhausted, and mentally broke ass tired we weren't exactly honest about us missing school or being late to clinical. Doing so would have cost us dearly. In the end we are both dedicated awesome nurses.
I have a strong moral code that lying is wrong. I hate it, but i am also a realist and see what is going to cause more harm in the long run. If either of us would have lied we'd not be where we are today. In our situation it was the better choice-tell my instructor the truth, they tell me to quit my job/s, i lose my car, apartment, cellphone cause i can pay the bills. Sounds like a plan... not.
All im saying is that the guy could have analyzed the situation better instead of jumping head first into pleading his case. Playing devils advocate i would doubt my case and be doubtful as a teacher if someone came up to me with his reasoning. Its a re-framing of dog ate my homework-which i would not believe.
Graduated. Work on a tele floor....yeah..jumped the gun on that one.
I could careless about a public profile.
I lied and had friends lie not because we're pathological lairs or manipulators, its because the rigorous standards we were subjected. I went the accelerated route and it was exactly that. I spent one day on tele and schools around me spend a month. It was crazy. Me and a friend held two part time jobs on top of school and volunteered around campus, while maintaining some of a social life i.e girlfriends. We both worked our asses off for our 3.8 overall nursing GPA. When we became so exhausted, and mentally broke ass tired we weren't exactly honest about us missing school or being late to clinical. Doing so would have cost us dearly. In the end we are both dedicated awesome nurses.
I have a strong moral code that lying is wrong. I hate it, but i am also a realist and see what is going to cause more harm in the long run. If either of us would have lied we'd not be where we are today. In our situation it was the better choice-tell my instructor the truth, they tell me to quit my job/s, i lose my car, apartment, cellphone cause i can pay the bills. Sounds like a plan... not.
All im saying is that the guy could have analyzed the situation better instead of jumping head first into pleading his case. Playing devils advocate i would doubt my case and be doubtful as a teacher if someone came up to me with his reasoning. Its a re-framing of dog ate my homework-which i would not believe.
It's not jumping the gun when you haven't updated your profile in years. How would anyone know that?
Good for you being the perfect nursing and college student and employee. We choose our priorities. Maybe it works for you to be spread thin and to make excuses for letting balls drop, thereby justifying your lies for missing class and clinical. I personally live in world where I accept I can't have it all at one time. I took on a responsibility and have a duty to see it through, and I have to ditch the "social life, i.e. girlfriends" to know that I am being honest and fulfilling my obligation of accountability. Plus it feels good not being "mentally broke ass tired". If you want to know the truth, it's irritating knowing there are people around me who do things the way you do because I do fulfill my part, I show up early, I get the job done on time, thereby negating the need to be dishonesty. The people who do that are the reason the dishonesty policies get made. Seems ridiculous the rest of us are doing things honestly, showing up and not getting our beauty sleep just because we over did it.
We are not going to agree on this. The OP did the right thing. The end result does suck, and I'd be upset, too. Doesn't make lying okay.
It's not jumping the gun when you haven't updated your profile in years. How would anyone know that?
Good for you being the perfect nursing and college student and employee. We choose our priorities. Maybe it works for you to be spread thin and to make excuses for letting balls drop, thereby justifying your lies for missing class and clinical. I personally live in world where I accept I can't have it all at one time. I took on a responsibility and have a duty to see it through, and I have to ditch the "social life, i.e. girlfriends" to know that I am being honest and fulfilling my obligation of accountability. Plus it feels good not being "mentally broke ass tired". If you want to know the truth, it's irritating knowing there are people around me who do things the way you do because I do fulfill my part, I show up early, I get the job done on time, thereby negating the need to be dishonesty. The people who do that are the reason the dishonesty policies get made. Seems ridiculous the rest of us are doing things honestly, showing up and not getting our beauty sleep just because we over did it.
We are not going to agree on this. The OP did the right thing. The end result does suck, and I'd be upset, too. Doesn't make lying okay.
Probably. Each to his own; glass half full or empty; were all different.
The OP did the morally right thing to do. I commend him and hope he takes it into his career, even when he finds out the floor is something different.
Specializes in Oncology; medical specialty website.
It might sound nice to say "oh just lie...we all do it...it hurts no one." Ok, so you tell the instructor "my house burned down." In most cases considered a valid excuse, but what happens when the instructor asks for proof that it happened.
Instead you could try "my tire blew as I was driving in." I happen to think that mishaps with one's car can be a valid excuse for being late (I was late for work one day because my car's battery could not handle the -12 degree F night). It does happen. But suppose the instructor says "well, show me the tow truck receipt...or the receipt for a new tire."
How about "my grandfather died this weekend and I was driving back from the funeral and didn't make it in time." Instructor: "then show my the funeral card or the obit." I had a professor in college who said when going over the syllabus for the course, that we needed to bring in the obit/funeral card if that was our reason for missing an exam. To use his words, "believe it or not, students have lied to me before."
Point is, what is going to happen when "proof" for the lie cannot be produced? At that point, the 'choice' involved in dropping out of nursing school might be taken out of your hands.
My guess is, this instructor has been lied to before. As someone has mentioned, she has probably heard the alarm "excuse" before. While the OP might have been 100% honest about why he was late, the instructor may have been rolling her proverbial eyes thinking "here we go again...another student who thinks the alarm excuse will work."
I'm all for compassion, but it is not a lack of compassion which leads the instructor not to allow the student to make up the test. Yes, messing up the alarm is human...yes it is a little thing that happens. However, one of those "little" things can cause serious harm to a patient. Just saying "well, it happens, I'm human" isn't necessarily going to protect you. I'm not going to go as far as saying the instructor did the OP "a favor." However, the 'show some compassion' argument doesn't really stand up either. The plaintiff's attorney certainly isn't going to show someone "compassion" for a little mistake that happens to humans.
FWIW, I don't think it was necessarily appropriate for the instructor to tell the OP to drop out of nursing school, but I need to know the context and tone of the comment before I am able to say anything further about that.
One of my classmates had to provide an obituary notice when she called off on a clinical day due to attending the funeral of a close relative.
To those who negatively remarked about the poster's username, yours was not an invitation to do this. If the name bothered you so much, you could have MOVED RIGHT ALONG.
To the poster: the best news is that you can still pass the class, yay. Do not forget to still go over the exam with the instructor if he/she is so kind as to let you.
Specializes in M/S, LTC, Corrections, PDN & drug rehab.
This is an open forum where anyone can comment. Not everyone is going to agree. Some people happened to see a link between the poor choice in screen name & OPs issue.
I think giving a student a zero for oversleeping for a test one time is ridiculous. People keep saying things about the "real world," but in the real world if you're late for work everyone might be mad at you, but you don't get fired. At least not at any place I've ever worked. I get deducting some points, but a zero is way too harsh, in my opinion.
Yes, someone who is habitually late should definitely be punished for it. But I doubt that one incidence of oversleeping is indicative of how a student will function in a professional setting.
I was supposed to take an exam at 8:30 am in the morning today, but my phone which was fully charged and plugged in decided to completely die over night, how? I have no idea.
I woke up at around 10:00 am and noticed how bright my room was, I quickly tried looking at my phone to see the time and noticed it was off. Yep, I have missed a nursing exam! I felt sick to my stomach and started panicking.
The very thing I immediately did was explain my situation honestly to my instructor and what happened. Our Syllabus policy states that we are able to make up an exam with a VALID excuse before the test, but I of course decided to be honest, and well, guess what? I was denied my exam and got a big fat 0.
So I pretty much lost a letter grade.
Anyway, I know the instructors will tell you to be honest all the time, but in situations like mine, you should lie.
OK, tough love time...
If you think that "My alarm didn't go off" qualifies as a valid reason to miss an exam, you need to redefine your definition.
VALID might be: Acute appendicitis or a major pile-up on the highway that closed the road...
"My alarm didn't go off?" or "My car wouldn't start" = LAME excuses for missing an exam OR being late to work...
Lick your wounds, learn your lesson, and get back up on that pony and keep riding.
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And seriously, don't rely on a computer as an alarm clock.
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Our Syllabus policy states that we are able to make up an exam with a VALID excuse before the test
I would also point out a key phrase from your syllabus: "a valid excuse **BEFORE** the exam"... that is, you let them know ahead of time... not afterwards... so, even if you did have a valid reason (which you most certainly did not), you would still have been denied....
OrganizedChaos, LVN
1 Article; 6,883 Posts
Well if the failure of class or clinical brings them to a grade they can't bring up then either fail out or drop.