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Discussion

Venting about ClassMates

Hello!

So I started LPN school about three weeks ago, and I must vent. Besides the class room experience being incredible when it comes to the interesting information we are getting, the women in my class are god awful! I mean horrible, worst than high school.

And Im aware a couple of people have made posts about "cliques" and what not forming in the classroom and I highly doubted it, but its so true. Its rediculous.

Only three of us are 22 and younger (myself included) and I feel like the rest of these older women are so F-ING pretentious with their heads so far up their ass. Exscuse my language but its frustrating.

It's like, whenever I have a question, I get chuckles or looks, and its honestly very discouraging. And I know these "social" situations should not be affecting me, but its hard for it not to becuase our Lab days involve us doing vitals, and handwashing, and making beds, and so forth, with a partner.

Anyway, I dont know where Im going with this. I just had to vent my frustrations over the lack of maturity, or rather, the PRETENTENTIOUSNESS over my older classmates that know as much about medicine as I do.

xoxox,

Orchid

Featured Replies

DarkOrchid:

I can't speak for everyone but I am sure the majority of people on this big earth has had similar experiences whether it be in a classroom or at a job-site.

Makes one wonder: "Does little itty bitty ME threaten them that much?" Sigh...Well, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" I say "S*** them and their little dog too" {that might be a NYC expression, but you get the drift}

Hold your head up high and ask your questions. They are dis-respectful of classroom etiquette and of you.

Hopefully some of your classmates have manners....Ignore, if you can, those self-righteous ignorant few people.

athena

  • Author
DarkOrchid:

I can't speak for everyone but I am sure the majority of people on this big earth has had similar experiences whether it be in a classroom or at a job-site.

Makes one wonder: "Does little itty bitty ME threaten them that much?" Sigh...Well, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent" I say "S*** them and their little dog too" {that might be a NYC expression, but you get the drift}

Hold your head up high and ask your questions. They are dis-respectful of classroom etiquette and of you.

Hopefully some of your classmates have manners....Ignore, if you can, those self-righteous ignorant few people.

athena

Thanx, I appreciate that. Its just hard not to feel inferior when these women seem to have it all down pact and even have the audacity to correct the instructor.

I hope things get better, but even if they dont. Im here to get an education so if I have to suffer through akward social experiences, I know itll be all worth it in the end.

Its just a shame, I was really looking foward to meeting some new people.

I have been a CNA for years and I am currently an LVN student. Yes, there are the cliches but ignore them your better than them. Hold your head up high, keeping asking questions till you get answers and keep giving your good patient care.Your patients know who is good and not and it shows through them. Asking questions is good!! Don't let them bother you that's what they want.

Your the who wins in the end. Asking questions,perservence,keep telling yourself you are going get there and do it.

Remember why you started this for you and noone else.

Your the one who wins the end which is not to far away.

Keep your chin up!!

I can feel your pain on this one, too. I'm about to start my 3rd (and final!) term in LPN school and the biggest gossiper is one of the oldest ladies in the class. I am still pretty young (I think) but I am definitely older than the petty high school baloney that is brought into classroom. I've even heard this forty-something year old say, "I never even had this much drama since high school!" and I kind of wonder if she's not saying it in a bragging kind of way. You know, kind of like - "WooHoo I've managed to gossip about each and every decent person in this class and then spread lies and rumors about them." This lady recently asked me what has happened - why I don't sit near her or talk to her much any more. I politely explained to her that I'm too old for the games, I'm trying to separate myself from the drama that seems to surround her, and I'm just trying to get through school.

Once we got a lot of the basic skills down in lab (vitals, bedmaking, dressing, etc.) we did less labs with our fellow classmates and more things one-on-one with our instructors. Don't let the snickers and sneers get to you in class. They used to bother me too but I found out those people will wish they had paid more attention to the instructor than they did to you.

Hang in there. You will do fine!

  • Experts

congratulations on getting into school and have a great year! don't let these insignificant toads ruin it for you. just ignore them. by giving their snide looks and comments attention you give them power which is exactly how they suck people into their game. that is how they get their jollies. it's bizarre. don't fall for it. ignoring them drives them nuts but it gives you control over them. and remember that they do not know more or know better than anyone else. their pseudo-confidence and big mouths only make it seems like they have more confidence is all. they are in school to learn just as you are. watch how they perform on the tests and the truth will be revealed. these ladies think they have something over you younger kids. right now, they think they are queens of the mountain because they are older and have more life experience. that is about to change as you get into the nitty gritty of nursing theory. just learn what the instructors are teaching you. let managers like me deal with the likes of these queens and their bad attitude later on in jobs where they try to lord it all over everyone else that does know more than they do when they try to pull their crap on us. the queen never rules forever and bullies always meet their match. you don't want to become one of their victims.

  • Experts

its just hard not to feel inferior when these women seem to have it all down pact and even have the audacity to correct the instructor.

no kidding? did they do it in a snide, nasty way? let the instructor fend for herself. how stupid do you have to be to insult the people who are not only going to grade you on tests but also provide you with the recommendation that you are going to need to get your first job? these ladies are very short sighted and arrogant. that recommendation
must
come from a school instructor. i know because i interviewed and hired new grads. we know how to read
what isn't
put into these recommendations and evaluations. that is how the instructor can get her revenge. there is nothing like someone who shoots themselves in the foot, is there?

its just a shame, i was really looking forward to meeting some new people.

you will meet plenty of new people and they won't necessarily be classmates. i found this some time ago on a medical school website for medical students (
http://meded.ucsd.edu/clinicalmed/thoughts.htm
) and thought it was just as applicable for nursing students:
never be afraid to ask questions. if those that you are currently working with are unreceptive, make use of other resources (e.g. house staff, students, nurses, health care technicians, staff physicians). you can learn something from anyone.

learn from your patients. in particular, those with chronic or unusual diseases will likely know more about their illnesses then you. find out how their diagnosis was made, therapies that have worked or failed, disease progression, reasons for frustration or gratitude with the health care system, etc. realize also that patients and their stories are frequently more interesting then the diseases that inhabit their bodies.

its just hard not to feel inferior when these women seem to have it all down pact and even have the audacity to correct the instructor.

no kidding? did they do it in a snide, nasty way? let the instructor fend for herself. how stupid do you have to be to insult the people who are not only going to grade you on tests but also provide you with the recommendation that you are going to need to get your first job? these ladies are very short sighted and arrogant. that recommendation
must
come from a school instructor. i know because i interviewed and hired new grads. we know how to read
what isn't
put into these recommendations and evaluations. that is how the instructor can get her revenge. there is nothing like someone who shoots themselves in the foot, is there?

this is a really good point. one of my friends is an instructor at the school i attend. she assists a teacher that most students don't like because she gives very difficult tests with questions that people think may have more than one correct answer, and she refuses to argue about what the correct answer is. (maybe it's just me but i think her tests sound a little bit like something called the nclex) anyway, students are horrible to her. she has a vision problem and some people in my class must think that also means she's hard of hearing. they say rude things i know she can't help but hear and she also gets complained about a lot to the department director. my friend remarked to me that these people will treat the instructor like horse doo-doo until they need a recommendation for a job. what will these nasty people do when they need a recommendation from an instructor that can only say about them, "well, she called me a witch with a b."?

definitely take pride in knowing that you aren't one of these kinds of people. it saddens me a lot knowing that most of the idiots in my class are going to pass school and go on to be nurses - and probably treat their patients with the same utter lack of respect. i take hope in that i plan on going on for my rn, maybe bsn - and maybe one day, i'll be the boss of one of these idiots!

  • Experts

mrsraisinkain. . .i worked with lpns most of my career because nursing assistants just weren't utilized like they are in today's budget crunch. i saw a fair amount of this "i know more than you" kind of attitude, especially in the nursing homes where i did a lot of extra work. when i became a manager and worked with a nurse recruiter in a huge city hospital i learned a lot. she basically taught me how to read between the lines of recommendations. other employers and schools are never going to outright tell you how bad someone's behavior and attitude is, but you can figure it out when the glowing accolades aren't on the paper like you expect them to be. we had a list of behaviors we wanted to see and when they didn't show up, we tried to elicit them in an interview. sometimes these people are so arrogant that they will openly trash their instructors or other students in an interview. it made our job so much easier. we didn't want them on our staff. they'd end up bullying others.

i recall having one lpn that i repeatedly disciplined and finally had to put on probation for leaving cups of medication at bedsides--this was in the acute hospital. we (this involved the director of nursing as well) had her go through a medication class to reiterate the safety reasons of why you just can't do that and i would have other nurses coming to me, i never had to ask, and report that she was walking around saying things like how stupid we were to think that another patient could walk in a take the meds or the patient could choke on them when they had been taking them for years without a problem. her colleagues were afraid for the patients. the don wanted to turn her in to the board of nursing, but the nurse finally did us all a favor and quit when she got put on probation. the sad thing is she probably got a job somewhere else and is doing the same thing. how she got a reference is beyond me because she didn't use me for a reference.

we had a professor emeritus at the nursing school i attended who set up and taught the lvn program. she was very respected and had a renowned naval career. but she was a tough teacher and people said a lot of nasty things about her behind her back. we had her as a lecturer for psych nursing since she did not do clinicals because she had a chronic illness that was slowly debilitating her. her test questions were hard. after graduation i often saw her around since this was a rural area. as i was in practice i began to understand more and more what she had been getting at with her questions. i can't tell an arrogant student who thinks they know everything that they don't. (1) they won't believe me. (2) they already think they know it all already. i know from my own experience that they are going to learn so much more and put together so much more after they get on a job for a couple of years. school is only the beginning. graduation only opens the door. these tough instructors know that and are trying to make students independent because when you walk through that door after you graduate, you are pretty much on your own. you might be lucky enough to find a very nurturing nurse to take you by the hand, but most won't. it will be sink or swim time for most. it will be hardnosed instructors who have prepared those new grads for how to get through it.

The sad part is, this is how life is. When you get out into the work field you are going to have this problem. There is a pecking order (so to speak) no matter where you go. It is up to you to rise above it. Especially if you are a young nurse- supervising older CNA's!

Hang in there. Things will get better when you get into the nitty gritty of things. It's all fun and games now while your making beds. They will calm down a bit when it gets more difficult.

Daytonite - along these lines... what's your advise in this situation? I was in a clinical group (10 students plus me) including one woman that is very negative. She laughs out loud at people in class asking questions. She actually threatened to take somebody "outside" during one class to resolve a situation. She is always very derogatory if she even bothers to participate in discussions with other students. She will walk into our conference room at clinicals and arrange her chair so her back is to the entire group. She's not mean to the residents at the facility, but she's not really nice either. She refuses to answer call lights which is a direct violation of our school's policy and could get us kicked out of our clinical site if the facility's administration witnessed a student ignoring a buzzing call light. Needless to say, nobody wants to work with her. Our instructor will partner us up for med pass and we rotate with our partner for several patients until it's time for the next pair of students to pass meds. This student always volunteers to go first and when our instructor asks who wants to go with her we all look at our shoes, the ceiling, anywhere other than our instructor's eyes. (After a lot of blabbering I get down to it) Will my lack of enthusiasm to volunteer to work with the student give me a blemish on my recommendation? Will I be listed as not a team player? Should I be the one to step forward and say, "I'll do it!" I can see both sides of this argument and I want somebody's opinion that has been there and seen a lot and also been on the hiring end. I appreciate your input.

  • Experts
daytonite - along these lines... what's your advise in this situation? i was in a clinical group (10 students plus me) including one woman that is very negative. she laughs out loud at people in class asking questions. she actually threatened to take somebody "outside" during one class to resolve a situation. she is always very derogatory if she even bothers to participate in discussions with other students. she will walk into our conference room at clinicals and arrange her chair so her back is to the entire group. she's not mean to the residents at the facility, but she's not really nice either. she refuses to answer call lights which is a direct violation of our school's policy and could get us kicked out of our clinical site if the facility's administration witnessed a student ignoring a buzzing call light. needless to say, nobody wants to work with her. our instructor will partner us up for med pass and we rotate with our partner for several patients until it's time for the next pair of students to pass meds. this student always volunteers to go first and when our instructor asks who wants to go with her we all look at our shoes, the ceiling, anywhere other than our instructor's eyes. (after a lot of blabbering i get down to it) will my lack of enthusiasm to volunteer to work with the student give me a blemish on my recommendation? will i be listed as not a team player? should i be the one to step forward and say, "i'll do it!" i can see both sides of this argument and i want somebody's opinion that has been there and seen a lot and also been on the hiring end. i appreciate your input.

i'd be standing as far in the back of the group as possible when the instructor was asking for volunteers to go with her! i can't see it going against you on a recommendation if you don't volunteer to work with her. there are other opportunities to volunteer to do other things with other people. just don't be the one to start trouble when you are paired with her. surely, the instructor can't be blind to how much she is disliked.

We have the same thing in our class. I've been in school 14 months and in the beginning the cliques" bothered me. As I gotten further along and more focused on my education experience I've gottan more clear understanding of that phrase "Nurses will eat their own." In the end, it's all about what YOU know, and what YOU can do. Those same people who have formed cliques are the same people who once out on the floor will have a hard time functioning without one another. You on the other hand, will be able to function in any situation because you learned your skills yourself, without concerns of what other students think. Good luck!

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