Virgilio

Pen light. Don't they have them at your college bookstore? I think the disposable kind are fine.

OMG, don't listen to these people. There are so many people your same age in pre-med, pre-law and applied physics which are equally academically challenging. There are people your same age who are in the military and working as corpsmen/medics, or civilian firefighters cops or EMTs which are equally emotionally draining jobs. These people go to school then work every day and they started at your age. This is your time to do what you are going to do. It sounds like the people you described are being wretched vultures who are propping themselves up at your expense. I'm now 38, but I went to paramedic school at age 19. I remember hearing some of that in school but I ignored it and was eventually hired at the most desirable 911 job in the area. I mostly remember people saying things like " I wish I was in my twenties and didn't have to support a family." or "I wish I could go anywhere in the country I wanted." That being said the most challenging part of my job was that I was 20 and all of the other medics were 36 or older and there was a big generation gap. Let me tell you right now there is no amount of working at a crappy Walmart job that will prepare you for what you will experience in the ER. You don't HAVE to have children to work in Peds. You don't have to have cancer in your family to work in oncology. Anyone who thinks they have an advantage over you is a fool, you have many more years ahead of you than they do.

I can't believe I'm the first person in seven pages /LOLing at all the judgey people!

I did the same thing just last week. We probably read the same article a few weeks ago. The Kinko's that I went to cut my soft bound books but, like you, couldn't cut my hard bound. Luckily they sent me a few miles up the street to the next Kinko's which had a stronger machine, cut right through it. Total cost to have them cut and drilled, $6.50. Instead of using expanding files I spent a little more for aluminum screw posts and covers from Amazon. Other thoughts for anyone else considering this: I was more than dismayed to find that the three hole punch went through the words of the text a little bit. The trade off of having a lightweight book, and being more organized is worth it. IIRC all of the books in my initial military training were similarly bound and it was not a problem at all. DO NO DO THIS IF IT WILL BOTHER YOU! The trade off will be instead of carrying 30 lbs of books to school every day you can streamline it to a slim book with only the material you will cover, and your notebook or whatever.

Make sure that you can do all of the math presented in that NLN-PAX book. Skip the vocabulary, none of those words will be on the test. Make sure that you can do the reading comprehension, I mean do a "No-BS" self appraisal. All of the science section was on my test, including some physics questions that were not in the study guide. When I took it in May it had a lot of electricity theory in the science section. I took all of the practice tests while timing myself and was only missing 4 or 5, but when I took the test I missed about 8.

I decided to drop out of my ADN program in the 90's while in the final semester. After 13 years and a reasonably profitable career in another field I'm going back in January. So I'll be repeating three and a half semesters starting next month. Personally I think that you can dig deep and score > 90 on your final.

I didn't see your post early enough on that Monday, but I thought of you all of that weekend. I'm really glad that everything worked out for you!

For what it's worth I dropped out of nursing school in the 90's, when I was in my early 20's for many of the same reasons that you are describing. I followed other opportunities and happily earn pay comparable to an RN's. I knew after about two years though that I missed health care and that someday I would come back to this. Here I am 12 years later and the only reason it is logistically possible for me to go back to nursing school is that, because I was in the military, I have the GI bill and a good paying job that is flexible around school. My advice is to tough it out. If you change your mind later it is more difficult when you have children, mortgage and other responsibilities in the way.

I would get pretty tired of long johns or under armor after two to four years of clinicals, but I think that would work. If you go with the shorter option then anything but white boxers or boxer briefs looks ridiculous. It isn't as bad as you think, I mean everyone knows you are wearing underwear.

I wore white uniforms in the military, white boxers/ white T-shirt did the trick.

This is upsetting, I hope your school de-colon-ifies their heads. Any conversation about common sense should include your schools lack of it for failing to make it clear to you that this unacceptable before the fact. So many of these posts are scolding you for lack of judgement, but I don't think this is such a 2 dimensional problem. As a military leader, I really hope that your faculty is getting their butts handed to them for creating a lax atmosphere surrounding the use of electronics in a HIPAA environment. I really hope they are getting their butts handed to them for failing to make it unquestionably clear that this is unsat, and realizing that students may "forget" and as leaders they may need to " course correct" and remind students not to use electronics. Should they only have to tell you once? Whatever. They should know that they are responsible for your actions still at this point in your training. It sounds like it was buried in your handbook and not emphasized or made clear enough. Are you responsible to read everything presented to you? of course! But they still have to guide you. I hope that your faculty is getting their butts handed to them for allowing what seems to be an enthusiastic student fall by the wayside. I hope that the gravity of their decision on your life is clear to them. They have a clear opportunity to put you on the right path and teach you a lesson that you won't forget, and meanwhile create a quality nurse in the process. Leadership failures that are allowed to cascade down to follower-ship are the worst kind because they are self perpetuating and easily covered up. Just my two cents, I hope that your appeal is successful. If not I hope that my response helps you get through the Anger stage of the five stages of grief, it certainly reflects the outrage I feel at your situation. A big part of me thinks that cooler heads will prevail for you and your appeal will go through on Monday. Good luck and let us know.

Lol, does ED mean Emergency Department? I'm still a pre nursing student and I immediately thought of "male health issues"!

I'm going to offer a slightly different take on this subject, I've found in life that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. There's also an adage that applies here: "Grant me the strength to change the things that I can, and the grace to accept the things that I can't." I'm not saying that it is bad advice to confront her but I wouldn't be surprised if she never seems to fully pull her weight, even if she improves. I would be very surprised if I learned that your leadership at school won't notice the issue when you're evaluated. Part of the point of group work is group dynamics, including group members that don't do their share.

I can't tell you what a relief it is to have that behind me. Of course, a positive response from my boss is not necessarily a guarantee of the reality of the next 2 or so years.

Well the moment has passed that I had been dreading since I got hired, knowing that I was going to pursue nursing school. I've been here for less than a year so timing was everything. I've delayed telling the boss until I've had just one more successful project so they'll keep me around and let me work flex hours. So I waited until the last minute, registration is right around the corner. No wait, I'm not talking about my wife, I'm talking about my boss at my job. Anyone else have to do this yet?