Redstudent

I know it sounds unprofessional of me to do this online. I had no academic adviser to get a hold of. I know many students want to avoid negative talk like it was bad karma. I was narrow minded when I earned a 54 on the exam. I wanted to see what it was like outside my school. Like I said before, this forum was way more helpful than I could have imagine. I initially thought the "blue print" for exams was cheating because the professor I am taking thinks it is cheating. That is the only thing I did not do. It is a resource that needs to be used. I figured it out pretty late. Well that is past news to me now. I am being assisted by 2 career counselors to find a job and make up for the setback. They are also looking into other majors I can go into and start anew.

I appreciate all the constructive input from everyone. This was more beneficial than I hoped for. It gives me an outlook I could not have thought of. My anger and suicidal tendencies have passed. I accepted that nursing is not my "cup of tea". My next move is changing my major or career direction. I will make what I can with my setback and see where it takes me. Dwelling on this topic any longer offers no benefit in my opinion. I cannot change the past now. I will try to change the present and make a new beginning for me.

This is interesting. I did not expect this many responses. Where to start? As far as my studying goes, I am more of an active learner so I like to rewrite my notes. It helps me remember what I have learned. In nursing school, I do not have the time since it is only 8 weeks. So my first method was to read the power points from my professor. That did not work. I tried reading the textbook and think of questions that are important. I would type them up in a way that would answer 4 questions. That takes a lot of time with little to no payback. That is what I am currently doing now. I did ask my colleagues for help or form a study group. They offered me a "blue print" of the exam. You could call it cheating or you could call it a resource to use. It is very subjective in opinion because most students use it to make up for the teacher's lack of teaching. Instead of studying for 200 pages, they only studied 50 pages. I would rather figure it out than let someone else do the work. Tutoring session was also the same way. We did a review of the material and then she gave us a "blue print" of the final exam. After thinking it over and listening to what all the responses are, I will take the failure. I figure I am not a nurse after all. I just do not have the mind set or the patience for it. It is a major set back for me. I did my best on the test and I got a 54. PS - I was actually surprise to hear that many locations just reuse the same test questions over and over again.

In my current situation, I am a nursing student who failed "common concepts" last semester. I am currently taking "common concepts" but I am currently failing. My class is only pass/fail based on test grades only. I got 78, 66, and 54 respectively for each exam. I just got a 54 on my exam. I currently feeling angry, frustrated, suicidal and depressed. I feel like I wasted time and money here. I thought I could learn to be a good nurse but this is how my class works. We take a 50 question exam over the material. We get graded at the end. If you attend testing remediation on what you got wrong, then you review it but you cannot write anything like subject or the missed question. I do not understand how we can learn if we cannot write what we missed. My professor's response was that they are trying to teach you critical thinking and they are tired of making new questions. Is this what nurses do for learning? They reuse the same questions. There is no bonus or extra credit. We do not even get to see pass/fail statistics of our class or concurrent class. My second excuse is that my class is 3 hours for 2 days. In other words, I am in a flex program where the class is 8 weeks. Sometimes we go over the time limit and stay in class for an extra 30 minutes. A red flag signals to me that this class was not meant to be 8 weeks. It should be 16 weeks. I also cannot stand hearing lecture for more than 1.5 hours. I cannot see how one student can pay attention for more than that. My third excuse is when I asked how some other students study for the exam. They pay someone who was a former teacher and basically goes over a "blue print" of the final exam. That is how they are passing and I am not. I did not want to bring it up because I did not want my friends to fail. It ends up being a ethical issue to me. Would you rather cheat and succeed or fail with honor? My last issue is having the same exam as the other teachers. We have 6 professors. 2 in the morning, afternoon and evening. They all teach differently but we all get the same test. How does that work and evaluate on our performance? I remember one class got 4 bonus points while the other 2 classes did not for exam 2. Yes, I am venting my frustrations. All this bad politics and grades can change a person's attitude of life. I have a chance to pass but I need an 82 on the final. My passion for nursing is down on the floor. I spent my weekend studying for exam 3 only to see a 54 as a result. My final exam is in one week. I apparently do not have a thought process of a nurse. My question now is am I a failure as a student and a human being? Should I take the final exam for a chance to pass or is that wasting hope on the hopeless? Where do failures go after this? Am I going to find out the hard way after this?