Given he Glut of threads I have encountered lately about people failing their nursing course once or multiple times, I decided to submit a poll. My main motivation stems from the obligatory post from someone responding to these threads with "Don't give up! I knew someone who failed 30 times, failed NCLEX 6 times and is the best nurse I know! Never give up on your dreeeeaams!!!!!!!!" (Insert sparkles, rainbows, and unicorns vomiting up glitter)
So ladies and gents, here's my question: Did you fail any of your nursing courses? To keep it as simple as possible, let's limit this particular poll to:
1. RNs
2. Only the actual nursing courses, not the science pre-reqs
3. Licensed RNs only please
I would certainly like to see variations of this, LPNs, the science courses, etc. But for now, lets limit it to the above
Given he Glut of threads I have encountered lately about people failing their nursing course once or multiple times, I decided to submit a poll. My main motivation stems from the obligatory post from someone responding to these threads with "Don't give up! I knew someone who failed 30 times, failed NCLEX 6 times and is the best nurse I know! Never give up on your dreeeeaams!!!!!!!!" (Insert sparkles, rainbows, and unicorns vomiting up glitter)
So ladies and gents, here's my question: Did you fail any of your nursing courses? To keep it as simple as possible, let's limit this particular poll to:
1. RNs
2. Only the actual nursing courses, not the science pre-reqs
3. Licensed RNs only please
I would certainly like to see variations of this, LPNs, the science courses, etc. But for now, lets limit it to the above
I'm still mad about that B+ I got in Med/Surg.... 91.8% Then found out about a year later it was likely due to an accidental 10 points taken off a paper my clinical instructor graded. Still finished with a 3.94 for my BSN but that B+ still bothers me.
I did not fail any courses and passed the NCLEX on the first try.
But I did know someone who failed the clinical part of their final nursing class. It was for a stupid mistake that the student totally owned, took the consequences and worked to not repeat the same mistake. The student did have to wait a year to retake the course, but got a job at the school SIM lab in the meantime, worked like crazy, and came back, repeated the course, and passed the NCLEX in one try. Interesting enough, the student maintained a good relationship with the preceptor that had to fail this student for their mistake.
As someone said up thread, it isn't the failure that matters, it is what you do after that really counts.
I noticed that most of the posters have not failed any courses, I'll bet that for every one that never failed a course, there are 5 that did fail and just doesn't want to post it. It's easy to say "hey look at me, I have a 4.0 and never failed anything". I personally failed 1 prereq course and 1 nursing course and had to take NCLEX 2x's passed the second time in 75 questions. In my school you needed an 80 to pass a course. The course that I failed was in the first year and I failed by about 2-3 points. I was going to school full time, working part time and raising 2 toddlers, oh and I almost forgot- I had never been to college before and I was 40yrs old. I wish more people would post about failing and then picking themselves back up and succeeding. I don't have to be perfect and I'm still proud of every accomplishment!!!
I noticed that most of the posters have not failed any courses, I'll bet that for every one that never failed a course, there are 5 that did fail and just doesn't want to post it. It's easy to say "hey look at me, I have a 4.0 and never failed anything". I personally failed 1 prereq course and 1 nursing course and had to take NCLEX 2x's passed the second time in 75 questions. In my school you needed an 80 to pass a course. The course that I failed was in the first year and I failed by about 2-3 points. I was going to school full time, working part time and raising 2 toddlers, oh and I almost forgot- I had never been to college before and I was 40yrs old. I wish more people would post about failing and then picking themselves back up and succeeding. I don't have to be perfect and I'm still proud of every accomplishment!!!
I feel ya there, same with me, I worked a full-time job, in 2 years I only had mothers day weekend off, worked every holiday possible to get out of poverty and school. I worked 12 hour shifts friday-sunday nights then went to school/clinical monday to friday. I come from a life where nobody graduated high school, a lot of alcohol (im alcohol free) I had to raise 3 young boys. I am very proud of where i am now, I passed my classes with B/B+ sometimes an A. My family was homeless (for 6 months, housing arrangments fell through) when I was in school. My employer never asked me if I failed any classes or what was my GPA when hired, now work as a charge nurse in acute medicine.
It's easy to say "hey look at me, I have a 4.0 and never failed anything".
It's not like people just piped up spontaneously. They answered a question that was asked. If that offends you, and you have a problem with other people's success, that's on you.
It's not like people just piped up spontaneously. They answered a question that was asked. If that offends you, and you have a problem with other people's success, that's on you.
I don't know, RK, but she has a point.
It is easy to put it out there that you did well because there is zero embarrassment involved.
Admitting that you struggled and failed... that's rough to put out there, especially in a field where standards are so high.
I really don't think she was being resentful of anyone's success. People often like hearing stories to which they can relate. If she failed and then redeemed herself, it seems reasonable to me that she would be interested hear about how others did as well.
You mention "other people's success", but I would argue she is a success in that she was able to learn and move on from her mistakes. She is a nurse. She succeeded and, therefore, she should not be offended by anyone else's success.
It is easy to put it out there that you did well because there is zero embarrassment involved.
Admitting that you struggled and failed... that's rough to put out there, especially in a field where standards are so high.
And yet, several people on this thread did just that. Clearly it's not so hard to admit for some people, who obviously came back from it to become successful as they're all nurses now.
But to portray this thread as an unalloyed expression of success that might make others feel bad is inaccurate.
Failed my year 2 careplan which meant I had to redo my year two clinical paper.
Failed the second quarter of our 6 quarter program.
I failed my L and D semester.
Yes.
I failed two nursing classes in the same school.
I failed a couple extremely important nursing courses! I failed the first time I did the nclex, who cares!
Yep. I failed my final semester and had to repeat after carrying a 3.5 GPA all through college.
La Cubanita RN
325 Posts
Never failed passed NCLEX 75 had a 4.0 in prereq's