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.
Karma is a ***** and I wonder if she would like to be fired if she were to oversleep and miss a class.
OK, so this is absurd...
You're equating employment termination with failing one exam? Straw man...
Besides, before one has proven themselves, a single event may end up getting them terminated... You're familiar with the concept of probation, right? Most probies are on very short leashes and failing to show up for work because of over-sleeping might very well get one terminated...
Nursing takes the "NO-CALL, NO-SHOW" thing very, very seriously...
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.
And where has it been established that the OP is not habitually late? I'm not saying he is, just saying that you are assuming facts not in evidence.
Honestly, could you tell me why someone would drop out of nursing school because of a failed test or missed clinical day? Rofl! Do YOU give up that easily?
rofl yourself! i've been working as a nurse for nearly four years, so quit being lazy and insulting and use your critical thinking skills -you tell me, did i "give up" or drop out of school? (btw - realizing you may be temperamentally unsuited to a particular career/field and having the courage to make a change is not "giving up".)
The commenters who wrote that this harsh punitive response from the professor is similar to what most facilities/DONs/managers will give you in "the real world" of nursing? They're right! If you are really opposed to such a strict culture where mistakes cannot be tolerated, you might be happier and/or more successful in another profession.
And bit more tough love... and unrequested advice...
You have a bad attitude which permeates your online presence here... your handle, the title of this post, and its content are all saturated with it.
You can change your attitude if you want but if not, you'd better work very, VERY hard to conceal it because it's going to get you into all kinds of hot water going forward.
And if, by any chance, that avatar is a picture of you, change it right this second because if this post is ever attributed to you in real life, by a prospective employer, you've just "vented" yourself out of a job.
Take the advice or not... but if it ticks you off to read it, you should do some serious soul-searching as to why...
One more comment to those who are equating the OP's situation to someone losing their job for oversleeping...
That's a totally invalid comparison...
What might be a bit more valid: If you overslept and were late to work, would you expect the company to schedule you some OT in order to permit you to recoup your lost wages for the hours that you missed? Probably not...
Honesty will get you everything in nursing school, but not alone. It has to come with integrity and responsibility. Responsibility is what you are missing here and that is why it didn't work out for you.
Ugh. I probably won't get any likes for this but REALLY? I've been made very aware of what a 'valid' excuse is since I was very young in school and NO ONE that I know thinks that sleeping in is a valid excuse. Valid excuses are a family member dies, you are sick/injured, you have to be in court, and maybe your minor dependent is sick. How many threads are there contain the advice: Set multiple alarms on multiple devices. It's because sleeping in isn't a good excuse. You should not blame your teacher. It is not her fault or responsibility.
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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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....
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Oversleeping is a valid excuse for NOTHING, EVER.
Extremely well put. Hence the reason I said to lie, creatively if able to better your case. I didn't say it would work for all, but if your know as a decent, hard working student they *might* believe you.
This advice bothers me. I'm not saying that the original poster doesn't have to deal with the consequences of what happened; but life happens. Alarm clocks don't work sometimes; keys get locked out of cars, etc. I have less than a month of nursing school left and it is very disheartening how nursing students can be treated sometimes. Nursing is supposed to be a caring and compassionate profession! Granted, yes, it is a profession so we have to own up when we make mistakes but the compassion is so often lost!
Original poster: this is a hard situation you are in now because of what happened; but don't give up. Try your best. It is better to have tried than to just give up because of ONE mistake.
I don't think I heard the advise is to give up nursing in the postings- just that what is a valid excuse as a burger flipping grill jocky and Burger Palace isn't valid for a health care professional (or one in training). There was a time that not showing for an exam wasn't a "0" for the exam, but a "don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out of the program". THAT is a bit severe!. My daughters and grandchildren seem to depend on thier "smart phones" to do everything for them but fill out thier taxes. No matter what the salesman told you-it's a PHONE. Lives may depend on your timely arrival to your job- an alarmclock with a battery backup is the least I have set. If weather is bad I set an old fasioned travel alarm as a back-up. In school, I had even been known to go to bed earily enough that I get enough sleep before an exam that I woke up on my own well before the test(but I admit that was rare) The point being- this wasn't a lesson in honesty, it was a lesson in responsibility and consequences. Things do happen, but you can bet in your nursing career, if you show up late or call in because your alarm didn't work- you are still going to face discipline in most jobs- and some mighty angry co-workers if it ever happens twice.
rofl yourself! i've been working as a nurse for nearly four years, so quit being lazy and insulting and use your critical thinking skills -you tell me, did i "give up" or drop out of school? (btw - realizing you may be temperamentally unsuited to a particular career/field and having the courage to make a change is not "giving up"
If you are a working nurse and did not "just drop out and do something else", then exactly who are you to tell someone else they should, when you didn't! ;-)
psu_213, BSN, RN
3,878 Posts
And the instructor who asked for it might look like a jerk, but, as this thread has proved, students (and non-students) lie.