Pay it forward

ADN 2002 · Aug 21, 2001

m (ADN) we are assigned an SO at the beginning of the year. As a freshman, you are assigned to a sophomore, and as a sophomore you are assigned to a student just coming into the program. The idea is that you help the new student out when they're new to the program, and many of the sophomores give their SOs books that they no longer use. And I think it's a great idea. Sadly, my SO didn't give me the time of day, let alone advice or *gasp!* a book, and many of the other students had the same problem. I'm telling you, my SO gave me a dirty look if I said "Hi" to her in the hall!! The sophomore class (when we were freshmen) just didn't seem to care, for the most part.

Now, I'm stuck in this horrible mentality that nobody gave me a d!@# thing and I did okay, so why can't others? (And I know this idea is wrong, so needless to say, I am struggling with this concept due to my negative experience.)

But, a few others had a great experience with their SO. One of the ones that "lucked out" is actually speaking to the group of freshmen about it when we host orientation this Thursday. Our director is giving us a pizza lunch (for the sophomores and freshmen) in a couple of weeks so that we can get to know everybody better. Our class is really hoping that we can be better than the class before us. Maybe we will be.

I'd love to hear others' opinions about this...

Kristin :)

essarge · Aug 21, 2001

I'm sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience. I hope that your class will do much better (sounds like you all are making a great effort).

I am hoping (since this board is international) that maybe something could be started here. A movement of sorts. I won't see my class for two weeks, but I will address this to all nursing students the first day of school. I know if we all pitch in that it will be successful and help a student who can't afford books a chance to be a nurse!! Who knows, maybe that is the student that will have the voice that will be heard!!!!!! :eek:

crnasomeday · Aug 22, 2001

That's not a bad idea essarge. It wouldn't do much good at my school though, as we have textbook rental which is part of your tuition so everybody has to pay it, even if you don't need any books from the rental service. The textbook rental though doesn't have many of our nursing books (in fact, the only ones they have are the text for community health nursing and one for a health law class that we have to take). Our other books are all things we have to buy. I wouldn't part with them for the world either. I still use my texts from classes I took a year ago, and I know I'll need them for reviewing for the NCLEX.

Brown Suga · Aug 22, 2001

I would love to participate in pay it forward, expect the program I am in requires us to use the books every semester. In addition to pick up two to three books each additional semester. I think your idea is great.

Keep up the good work,

Brown Suga

essarge · Aug 25, 2001

Thought I would let everyone know that we implemented this program at our school. The nursing club will take care of it.

The way we set it up is that, volunteers will man the "pay it forward" room from 1pm-2pm in the afternoon the first two weeks of class. It will then shut down until the end of the semester when books will be able to be donated the last week of classes. Our Dean is very excited about it and so are we. Hope that other schools follow suit and help other nursing students out. Team work has to start somewhere!!