marialaughs

Thank you for your response! First of all, we had to fundraise for our pinning ceremony because it is optional and the school does not plan it or arrange it for us. So we've been raising money since our first day in school. We have a budget and we've been sticking to it. We have a date for our ceremony and a location. We don't get anything from the school, and we have decided to send out e-vites to save money. The photo shoot will be done at our school and we have that already set up. It's not very expensive and we have a great photographer. We are having trouble deciding what to wear for our ceremony. We have all agreed to not wear cap/gowns even though the classes before us have done that to save themselves the headache of coordinating a dress code. Since we are planning/doing everything and the school has nothing to do with it they have no issue with us wearing whatever we want. The girls are aiming for some sort of old-school nursing dress and a hat like they would wear with Nightingale. I don't have any issues with that but I don't know where we would get the dresses or hats. We decided to allow two people to pin us since the majority of my class has a husband and a child and they want to have both of them pin them. In that case do we need two pins? We have already paid for and submitted payment for the official school pin which is the only requirement the school has for the pinning ceremony. But do we need to buy another pin (in my class's case a very, very cheap one) to have the second person pin us? Our school has no such requirement to have a nurse pin us because my school is located in an area where the majority of students are first time college graduates. I will be doing a speech and then we will be having a keynote speaker followed by two or three other students giving speeches on the history of the pinning ceremony and the nursing pledge. No one in our audience will know the point of the pinning ceremony so we figured it would be a good idea to explain it all before we got into it. Our prior classes have done something with lamps but I have no idea what it is. I was told that they light their lamps during the nursing pledge. Does anyone have any other insight on this? I also heard that back in the day when nurses were first being graduated, the purpose of the "pinning ceremony" was just to congratulate that person for literally surviving long enough to graduate. They survived tuberculosis and other contagious diseases. I think this is appropriate because I'm attending a two-year school and "surviving" has been redefined for all of us. This program is so grueling that even the students in my class that have received masters degrees in other areas have admitted that obtaining their masters degrees was easy compared to our nursing program. So I guess what I really need now is what should my class wear, what is done with the lamps, how do we get pinned and do we need an extra pin for that second person?

I am a senior nursing student and the president of my class. One of the biggest jobs that I have is planning the pinning ceremony for my class. Since I've never been to one I would like to see/hear examples of what happens during a pinning ceremony. I've been ordering pins, lamps, caps/gowns, and photo shoots but I still don't know how it's all going to come together during the ceremony. So how about? Can anyone post their ideas and experiences so that I can plan an amazing pinning ceremony?

It's so good to hear that I'm NOT the only one that feels this way! I'm very good at math and have always loved the "organization" of it. I took calculus in high school and had to re-take it during college for credit. While taking the course I started doubting whether I picked the right career choice in nursing considering how much I love math and how good I am at it. I also realized that there are so many nursing specialties that if you want to lean towards a nursing career that requires more math involvement look into a nurse informatics career. That's what I'm doing, I think it's a great way to combine my love for math and passion for helping people.