alindberg

I don't believe anyone said that the A students shouldn't be darn proud of their accomplishments... Nor did any of the C students say that everyone should settle for a C and be fine with it...I'm sure most with C's wish they had better grades and aren't just sitting around saying, "oh it's cool, I'm barely passing but who cares?" The point I was trying to make was just because you make an A doesn't make you the cream of the crop and just because you make a C doesn't mean you suck. So EVERYONE needs to quit judging. If you make an A, be proud but be humble. Be willing to share your tips with others who may not be doing as well. There's no need to flaunt your A for the sole purpose of making those around you feel like crap. I guarantee you that no matter how many A's you get in school, there will come a day that you make an epic mistake and fall flat on your rear end too! With docs and nurses and patients and family members there to witness it.And I'm sure you won't want someone in your face telling you that you didn't work hard enough and do your best. Crap happens...to everyone!

And btw - if you can make all A's, take care of your family, exercise 5 times a week, spend time with your friends, keep your house spotless, be a perfect clinical nurse and still look beautiful at the end of the day - more power to ya! I'm jealous, really! It's not every day you can rub shoulders with perfect people! Moral of the story: We all​ have faults. Embrace them, work to improve them and do not judge others for theirs.

I think the problem here is that the A people are judging the C people for not being as smart or trying as hard, almost as if you A people don't think the C people deserve to move on because they're not as good as you. Where is the compassion of you A nurses?!? The snide comments about "the C people should work as hard as I did for my A" people should really stop. Just because you got an A and I got a C doesn't mean I studied any less than you did or that I care less about my grades. But I may get a C because my kid was up all night puking and you got to go to bed at 10 and slept like a baby and were well rested for that test. Did you ever consider that maybe someone had a personal issue before their test? (I haven't made a C yet *knock on wood* but I'm just saying.) Seems like everyone here can acknowledge that NS is a totally different ball game and that the tests are totally different, but can't acknowledge that people are going to adjust differently to this major change. Just because one person gets a C doesn't make them any less "smart" or "hard working" or "dedicated". This is the biggest problem I find with the American school system. A letter grade does **NOT** always reflect the knowledge you possess. And the fact that there is so much emphasis placed on the letter grade skews the system! You can make A's on every test and every assignment and be the worst bedside nurse ever with no ability to think on your feet or know what to do when faced with a real life human being in a major medical crisis. You can also be a "C nurse" and be the best bedside nurse with the ability to recognize what something looks like when presented with it in reality but maybe not so much on paper. So what?! Would you rather have a nurse that can fix you on paper but not in person? I wouldn't! And I'd rather have a kind hearted nurse that's going to try hard to figure out what's going on with me and work better with the rest of the health care team to fix me than a *****y nurse that is going to be cocky and try to tackle my issue on their own and possibly kill me because they think they know everything because Uh Oh, they got an A! and let their arrogance get the best of them. And the fact that a student nurse is "happy" with a C doesn't mean that they aren't striving to do "better" to get that A. C = NURSE. B = Nurse and A = Nurse. Regardless of what the grading scale is, those 3 letters all equal Registered Nurse assuming you pass the NCLEX. Other than in this forum, I have never heard of any graduate nurse being asked what their GPA was. Doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but okay so what if that does happen? You can have a screwy resume, a 4.0 GPA, a terrible, cocky "I got all A's in nursing school so I know it all" attitude with RN behind your name dressed unprofessionally, chewing gum and still NEVER get a job because you don't have intrapersonal skills, interview skills, compassion and a humble heart. Go figure. There is no guarantee you will get a job regardless of your grades! Many other things play into you getting a job than just your GPA. How about we act like real nurses and be compassionate and caring for each other and our different circumstances and strengths and weaknesses so we can be better nurses together when we step out onto the floor?! If we could quit being so judgmental and competitive, we could play off of each others strengths and really excel with patient care! Isn't that the core of why we're all here anyway? *End of rant* =)

Personally, I DO believe that nursing CAN be very family friendly...Being an RN opens the door to many different paths and opportunities. If you want to work in a doc office and have bankers hours, then that's possible. If you want to be home with your kids during the day then you can work nights and weekends in a hospital. You can work PRN (as needed or filling in where there isn't staff coverage) and make more money picking up shifts that are convenient for you and your family - but you won't get the benefits of health insurance, paid time off, etc. Not to mention if you get bored or burnt out in one area, there's many many more you can transfer to. ER, Labor & Delivery, ICU, OR, Peds, Doc office (different types of medicine - family, maternity, urology, gastroenterology, gynecology, ENT, etc.) If you want to further your education and do administrative work, you can. If you want to do consulting for law firms (usually with a bit of experience), you can. If you get tired after 20 years of working on the clinical side of things and want an office job, it's possible. IMO, Nursing is one of the most flexible careers you could have! The options are truly endless! I worked for almost 5 years in a very busy ER doing patient registration/financial counseling but worked the same 12 hour shifts the RNs worked. I was able to work 7p-7a (72 hrs per pay period) and be home with my two little ones during the day and did not have to pay for child care or be away from my kids and worry about the care they were receiving. Granted, I didn't get much more than 3 hours of sleep a day but that was a trade off I was willing to make. Working that shift and being able to be home with my kids only did more to solidify my choice of nursing as a career! NOW - Once you're at work, you're an extremely vital part of the health care team and can't just run out when it's convenient for you. So when you're scheduled for work, you're there for the shift unless you have a true and dire emergency and/or can find your own coverage to take time off! I agree with the previous poster that you should find a way to shadow or speak to nurses who are currently working and get a feel for the true nursing experience. It's not all rainbows and babies and smiles and "saving lives" isn't always that simple and great. You hold people's hands while they're dying and then put them in a body bag when they've passed on (toe tag & all), clean poop, pee, and puke frequently including the millions of smells that can come with that, endure demanding attitudes from people who are feeling their worst, comfort patients & family members who are scared, crying, yelling, begging, and bargaining for their lives. You can be laughing with a family one minute and doing CPR on an infant the next. You can take care of patients that are more than grateful for your help and are receptive and willing to make changes and then take care of people who can't or won't change their lifestyle to promote their own health even if their life depends on it and it can leave you feeling like you're working on a lost cause. Some days are really, really great and fulfilling and others are more than depressing and frustrating. In my experience in the health care setting, your days can be the most loopy, bumpy roller coaster you can imagine or the smoothest sailing trip on a beautiful open sea. I can't wait for that to be my working life!! I embrace all of it with open arms knowing I will have horrible days and the best days ever. Whew! That gives me goose bumps! Your personality will determine how you can handle all of the changing emotions. Only you can know if you can handle that. It's happened before that a person experiences one life-changing experience with a family member and they decide they're going to be an RN or MD and do it and love it and never look back. But if you have had no other experience in a clinical setting besides the one you have had, I personally would not make a drastic, career/life changing decision based on just that one experience. That's just me. When you're the one up to your elbows in blood, it may not be what you thought it would. =) Also as the previous poster said, what has changed so much in your finances after doing the applying and backing out for 9 years, has you prepared to move forward this time? Do you have a really good support system for your kids and other family obligations? You really have got to make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row before giving up your security in your current job to move forward. Nursing school is fun and stressful and much like nursing - so you have to be flexible and willing to give up whatever you need to in order to meet the demands of school. Of course within reason, but school will likely need to come first and you and your family will need to sacrifice some things in order for you to be successful! And that's okay and can make that "Registered Nurse" title taste so much sweeter when you get it! All of that being said, I don't think anyone who has started nursing school hasn't had some sort of reservation or fear of what's to come, how hard it's going to be (or maybe it won't be that hard for you!), how much time it will take up, etc. What kind of student are you? In your pre-nursing classes did you have to devote a ton of study time or were you able to make great grades with very little effort? That may or may not give you an idea of what kind of study time you will need to put forth. It will likely be quite different than what you've experienced before. Only you can make the decision based on all of the things we've all brought up and then some! But until you have a pretty good idea of all of those things and can feel confident in yourself about the decision you've made, I would not walk away from my long time job/career that you already possess. I wish you the best of luck! Thousands of people walk in your shoes every year and make that leap of faith to do it. Some stick with it and others find out it's not for them. And either way is okay as long as you have a back up plan if it doesn't pan out the way you thought it would. I'm sure you'll make the right decision!

RN classes do not transfer. I completed a semester of nursing a while back and no one would take those credits. I then waited so long to go back that I had to redo my sciences because they were more than 5 years old! Unfortunately it is likely that you will have to retake all of your nursing classes again. Please don't do what I did and sweat that so much that you don't go back somewhere, anywhere, for any program! I was so discouraged and ended up putting school off for so long that I set myself back an additional 1 3/4 years!! Not only that, but I now have two small children of my own that have to deal with my absence from home and preoccupation with my classes and school that often (and very unfortunately) have to take the front seat over them sometimes. Thank God I have a wonderful husband and parents that help out and step in when I can't be there. Get online and start looking at ALL of the schools in your area or within the radius that you're willing to commute. Get a copy of your transcript and start looking at all of the nursing programs. Compare their pre-req requirements to what you have already completed and start applying to the different programs that are closest to what you've done already. (That have the least amount of classes that you have to take to qualify you for application to their program.) I'm 99.99% certain you will not find a school that will accept your NUR credits. But you should receive credit for most of the other classes you have taken. Even if you think that it will royally suck to start over in another nursing program, you will still be starting over if you decide on another health care path, because your nursing credits will have still gone to waste. (Other than the bountiful knowledge in your brain! haha) I considered this too...wasn't worth it to me! The program that I'm in now will let us come back once if we fail or drop out, however each of our classes are only offered once a year, so we can't fall back in until one year later no matter what! I don't know your situation, but life happens frequently and people have to drop or fail out all the time. You're certainly not alone! Again....PLEASE do yourself a favor and don't discouraged and let that keep you from going back to school!!!! I can honestly speak from experience that I regret doing that myself...every. single. day. of. my. life! Good luck to you!

I could lie and say it's easy, but I'm all about being truthful. =) It isn't easy having kids, and it isn't easy going to school. It definitely isn't easy doing both at the same time! haha I got through almost two semesters of nursing school 11 years ago (20 years old) and dropped because of "life". I kick myself every day for doing that because I have a lot more "life" going on now than I did then. That being said...It is more about your drive and desire than it is anything else. If you have a supportive husband and inlaws that are willing to help out with your little one, I'd say skip the LPN program and go straight for your RN and get it done! I don't know where you live, but I live in NC and there's a huge push for BSNs. So much so that a few hospitals will only hire BSNs. Or so that's the story on the street. I don't know that for sure because I've not graduated and looked for a job. BUT according to my nursing instructors they're trying to make BSNs the lowest degree level due to better patient outcomes, etc. Will that ever happen? Who knows? I don't think it will be for some time, but I'd rather set myself up for success than more struggle. If the LPN route is your only option, go ahead and finish that and if possible, go straight into the RN program. You CAN do it, IF you want it badly enough! And I agree with a previous poster that it will be easier for your kiddo while he/she is small than waiting until school age when they're more aware of your absence. That is my biggest struggle right now and it sucks! I keep telling myself (and them) that it wouldn't do me or them any good to be in the same financial position we are in now by sitting at home. I can provide a better future if we can all sacrifice a bit now. YOU CAN DO IT!! There's many a mommy that has graduated nursing school with children of all ages!! Some who have gotten pregnant and delivered their baby on Friday and were back to school on Monday, some with grown (high school aged) kids, toddlers, babies...and they all make it somehow! That is one thing my instructor repeats to us often - "No matter how stressed you are or how discouraged you are, remember that people pass the courses every semester and graduate the program every year. There's no reason why you can't do it too!" Good luck!

A few things - Good for you that you're doing well without having to dedicate every moment of every day to studying. You're blessed and you can be thankful and happy about it! :) I'm doing pretty well also and not spending every moment of every day studying. My test grades are quite roller coaster-ish A's & B's but I have a high B overall in my class right now. I find myself worrying about similar things however, I cannot prepare for something the same way everyone else has because we all have our own learning styles, capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. I have never really had to study too much - and unfortunately now that I'm in nursing school the more I study the lower my grade has been. I'm very irritated over this and idk what to do about it really. Clearly I am not studying the best information or I'm not pulling the most important info out of the questions well enough. Who knows? What I have been told by instructors and 2nd year students alike, if what you're doing is working for you - continue on until it no longer works. Be prepared to change your routine & habits if need be, but if you don't have to, then don't. Just because second year is more difficult for someone else, doesn't mean it will also be more difficult for you. I feel like 2nd year will be easier for me because all of the puzzle pieces will be there instead of just trying to focus on the fundamentals. I have heard that be the case for a few of our 2nd year students. Maybe it won't be easier for me...I guess I will figure it out once I get there. The absolute best advice I can give to you is to focus on you. Don't worry about what everyone else around you is doing, or what they're struggling with, or maybe where they're excelling and you're not. You have to be your own competition & measure of success. If you're making good grades and feel like you're retaining the info and like you can apply it to real life situations, then keep on keep on keepin' on! If/when you find that is no longer working for you, that will be the time to worry about changing it. Remember, some people are great test takers and will have wonderful grades and can't provide quality patient care if their life depended on it. Some people aren't good test takers and will barely pass classes but will be the best nurse, providing the best care you have ever seen. Only you can know who you are and which category you fall in, or maybe you're smack dab in the middle of both. You may be a decent test taker and can provide great standard care. That still makes you a nurse and you can always build on your skills as you grow in your career. :)

I am in my first semester and don't feel quite as overwhelmed as I thought I would. Of course some days are worse than others. I have been told by some 2nd year students that the stress doesn't get less, but it changes. The first semester is the one where you cram in the most fundamental info in along with your skills - pair that with learning a new language and learning how to think in a completely different way AND take tests in a completely different way can be pretty dang daunting, especially for someone who didn't expect any of it! In our program once we get to second year, we're in clinical 2-3 days a week and class one day. So we go from learning all the new stuff and ways of the nursing world and organizing all of this info to "working" as an RN and keeping up with coursework and clinical responsibilities along with learning more critical skills/information, etc. By then, you should be more aware of what to expect on a test, but the info will be more detailed and critical. Will it be less stress? I guess it depends on who you ask... As someone else mentioned, in nursing school each semester builds on the previous one. The information cannot be learned for a test and then forgotten, like we probably did a lot more in our pre-reqs than we'd like to admit. You have to retain ALL of it and learn how to apply it to more situations and then go into more detail about it. And I'm sure by then you'll better know how to manage the stress too! I would take one day and one week at a time. Don't look too far ahead because that's going to overwhelm you for no reason. Of course you're not going to fathom working a trauma in your first semester when you're just trying to learn basics. But when you get to that, you'll know the basics and how to apply that to your patient and then some! I'd be willing to bet that you will be totally shocked at what you know next year - what answers and information pours out of your mouth that you didn't even know you had tucked away in your memory banks! You got this, don't worry!! P.S. Don't forget your own "self-care". Exercise, meditate, read the Bible, go out with friends/family, read a book, take a walk, listen to music, take a nap, cook, take up a new hobby....Something that you want to do for YOU to get your mind off of school and rejuvenate you. You won't be able to do everything you need to do if you forget about you in the process. :)

I would recommend you getting some books with NCLEX style questions in them. You can get NCLEX study books, or you can get books that are tailored to specific subjects with NCLEX style questions in them. (Pharm, Med Surge, Fundamentals, Maternal/Infant Nursing, etc.) Your pharm book may have some questions in them and you may also find questions online, in other books, etc. I also agree with sosopretty08. Schedule time with your instructor during office hours and ask for guidance on what or how to study this subject. If your instructor is willing to help, he/she will be the best source of help! :) Good luck!

Why are you trying to learn this when you're not in a Nursing program? I'm not trying to be rude, just wondering...I have never had anyone interested in learning how to do care plans if it wasn't necessary. Usually people put it off as long as possible! LOL Care plans can be a lot of work and there's a lot more to it than just filling in the blanks with random answers. There's A LOT of critical thinking required to come up with and implement a plan of care. Also, quite a bit of knowledge base is required outside of just knowing those definitions.

I feel you need to definitely bring it to the first person in your chain of command at school, immediately. Don't put it off another moment because it sounds as though it is already getting worse. You should NEVER have to be put in an uncomfortable position, regardless of the reason. For my chain of command, my instructor is first, then the director of the Nursing Program, then the dean of health sciences, etc. Our school (especially the nursing program!!) has ZERO tolerance of any such behavior! They don't even tolerate *friends* making cat calls or whistling to each other in the parking lot simply because it portrays an image of unprofessionalism and a lack of credibility to the people they have chosen to be in the program. We are to be professional at all times because we, as individuals, are a direct reflection on our program and our instructors. And quite frankly it should be that way all the time, even when you're employed at a facility. There could be a patient walking by you while you're calling out a vulgar comment to your friend, and they have no idea it's your friend. Would they have confidence in your hospital if they were to witness that? Probably not. I wouldn't snap back at them with a snarky comment. Even though it would be fun to put them in their place, it makes you look just as immature and unprofessional. Good luck, that's a crummy position to be in!

We review our tests as a class on the day of the exam after they've been graded. We have to turn in a scantron AND a paper test with our answers on it. The scantron is our final grade and we never see those again. The instructors keep them locked up. Our paper tests are what we use to review the test and go over any questions we feel need clarification. Depending on the question (if a lot of people missed it) they've given us credit back if we can give a valid rationale for our answer choice. That doesn't happen a lot though...I think we've gotten 6 or 7 questions back on 4 - 50 question tests. Which is better than nothing. Everyone who fails the test (less than a 78) is required to have a one on one test review with the instructor to try and see where you went wrong and to give you tips (hopefully) on how to improve. They also put you on an action plan or something since we are required to keep a 78 test average at all times. I'm not really sure what that entails because I've never failed a test, but they seem to be very willing to work with us. After everyone who failed has had their meeting, anyone else who wants to have a meeting to go over their test can schedule a time to meet with the instructor. We are never allowed to take our tests out of the instructors office, and if they don't get our test back after the review (on test day), they give you an automatic "0". Kind of sounds like we're very lucky and I must admit, we have some AWESOME instructors who are EXTREMELY supportive and willing to work with us. They stress all the time how they want us to pass and that we're there to learn. I LOVE my program, the instructors and my classmates!!

We have 29.

OMG - This isn't something to be ashamed of, this is something you should CELEBRATE!!!! I started nursing school right out of high school completed 1 1/2 semesters of NS and I got hung up with a man and got married and dealt with his baggage and children and left my education and career to deal with all of that. Long story short, It's almost 10 years later and I'm divorced, remarried and I have two young children and I'm starting again on the 15th. (Don't forget I had to retake all my sciences because I waited too long to go back!!) I can't tell you how much I kick myself for not being disciplined enough and more concerned about ME to finish the first time. Now I have a lot more at stake and my children have to sacrifice time with me so that I can finish now. Those people are just jealous that they didn't do it when they were younger! (I can say that because I AM jealous! lol) You need to focus on YOU...Grow you...educate you...be the best YOU that you can be. You may not have the life experience but you will gain it as you go. You may have to work harder to be mature in certain situations, but as long as you're aware of yourself around your patients, I think you will be just fine! There are plenty of "grown" folks that are just as much if not more immature than their young coworkers so just be aware and you'll do great!! Besides, being older has a whole other set of potential downsides. (set in their ways, not up to date on processes and info, slower, etc.) :) Best of luck to you!!!

To my knowledge schools won't transfer actual NUR courses. So you should be able to transfer all of your pre-reqs but I doubt you'd be able to transfer actual nursing classes unless certain schools have agreements to do so. I could be wrong, but I don't think it's an option. I completed a semester and a half of nursing school before and no one would take my 1st semester class as a transfer. I had to completely reapply to nursing school. Good luck!