Share stupid bad advice

[coolpeach]

The wait is almost over as the emails (rejection/acceptance) go out at the end of this week. The earliest possible is Thursday (which is also 12 year old son's birthday), and latest next Monday. It would be great to get an acceptance email on his birthday.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the journey to this point. I was thinking of how many things were walls I never thought I would get over, but somehow did. OH, and all the advice and information that I got from professors, financial aid advisors, and academic advisors that actually made my life harder, turned out to be wrong, or freaked me out. I thought I would share some of those, and see if anyone else had similar experiences.

I remember my first semester my psych professor taught about how to be a successful student. He said there is never a reason to take a bad grade always drop the class. The next semester I took A&P, and the professor was head of the Health professions committee at the college. She told us that only the A, 4.0 students would get into a nursing school. I remember it was then I realized a bad grade wasn't an F or D, but anything less than an A. I understood all this information to mean that if I didn't make an A I should drop the class, and do it again. Then another professor infomed us in microbiology that nursing schools would not let you in if you had a bunch of W's. This was confusing !!! Then an academic advisor told me that if you don't do well in a class that if you just retook the class the new grade would replace the old grade, and everyone would be happy. OH WAIT....financial aid would not be happy if you retook classes you got B's in for A's.

I remember stressing over all of this trying to figure out how to get a 4.0 every time the first time.

I am so glad this part of it might almost be over.

[Bicster]

Actually it was all good, sound advice:

If you were doing poorly in a particular class you should consider dropping it; that decision needs to be weighed against the consequences however:

-Many W's do not look good.

-Financial aid (if you go that route) might not pay for a class taken twice.

-Nursing schools are very competitive so you should strive to make all A's.

[curetheworld]

I'll share something. This happened in my final semester of nursing school (preceptorship). Seems like pre-nursing school was so long ago, I can hardly remember.

Here we go:

I precepted in Medical ICU. My assigned preceptor was totally awesome. One day she had to float, so I worked with a temp.

Him: "Do you know the difference b/w novice and expert nurse?"

Me: "other than the obvious.... no I don't. please share" (I was expecting to hear some secret)

Him: "expert nurses can HIDE their mistakes REALLY well. novice nurses don't have that SKILL yet." (emphasis intended)

umm.... really? I was so glad he wasn't my preceptor.